There and Back Again
by artku
Summary: 6 years after Dan and Serena's wedding, everything is different. Nate Archibald thought he'd left the UES and it's drama behind when he moved to Europe, but circumstances have forced him to return. He'd left a world of 'happily ever afters' when he left, but now he gets to find out that life isn't that black and white and nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
1. Chapter 1

The shrill ring of a mobile phone pierced the silence in the dark room, startling her out of her reverie. Clicking her tongue in irritation, she pulled the eye mask off her face. Her efforts to sleep had been futile anyway, her thoughts too muddled of late to give her any peace. She answered without glancing at the screen.

"Hello? Blair?" the voice was instantly recognizable, despite her not having heard it in months. The panic in it was instantly recognizable too.

"Nate? What's wrong?"

"I-", his voice broke momentarily, "I got a call from Lenox Hill Hospital." She was out of her bed and halfway dressed before Nate finished his second sentence. Five minutes later she was standing in front of the guest bedroom. She hesitated a minute before knocking loudly and informing her sleeping husband of the situation. Ten minutes later, they were in their town car, hurtling through the deserted city streets.

* * *

The harsh fluorescent lighting of the waiting room brought the dark circles under Blair's eyes sharply into contrast with her porcelain skin. She was speaking to the nurses and doctors, calm, collected yet determined and demanding. Chuck sat silently on the hard plastic seats, watching her out of the corner of his eye. The woman before him a far cry from the girl he married eleven years ago. The girl who would've stomped her expensively shod foot and shrieked at the hospital staff. So much had changed over the last ten years. He sighed and pulled his mobile out of his pocket to glance at the time. 4:00 am. When Henry was a few months old, he'd always wake at this hour. Blair had labelled it the 'Waldorf Witching Hour', claiming she had been the same.

A small commotion at the entryway made him look up. The tanned, leggy blonde entering turned heads even in her jeans and hoodie. Serena crossed the room to Blair and enveloped her in a silent hug. "What's going on?" she said.

"Nate's mom was in a car crash earlier tonight, she's in surgery right now but it isn't looking positive. Nate's still in Europe, I don't know what to tell him," Blair said with a sigh before rubbing her tired eyes. She turned to Chuck, "She'll be in surgery for a couple of hours at least, why don't you go home and get some rest. You have that big meeting with your investors in the morning. I'll call you if there are any developments." He kissed his wife briefly on the cheek and thanked Serena for being there for Blair before leaving.

Blair and Serena sat with their heads together, one a sleek brunette bob the other a wild, tangled blonde. They hadn't seen each other in months and distracted themselves from the ominous glare of the red light above the operation theatre by filling each other in on their lives.

Their relationship had matured over the years into the kind of sisterhood that they'd always hoped it would be. They no longer constantly fought. The petty jealousies of their girlhood a distant memory. Blair excused herself to call Nate with an update and Serena thought of the night before her wedding to Dan Humphrey. She'd chosen to forego a bachelorette party in favour of one last girly sleepover with Blair. They'd talked into the wee hours of the morning, unmindful of whether they would look tired at the ceremony. Growing up with Blair, Serena had thought that she knew everything about her but that night the two of them really opened up their hearts to each other. Blair confessed her feelings of inadequacy, how she'd always thought of Serena as a blithe spirit and envied her for it. Serena had almost laughed at how badly their wires had been crossed and confessed her own jealousy. She had spent her teenage years envying Blair her ambition and clarity. She'd been so confused about what she wanted and whom, whereas Blair had always just known. They'd embraced tearfully, full of drunken promises of never letting anything get between them again. Despite the many similar promises they had made to each other before and broken, this time they kept their word. Time and experience given them a fresh perspective on the importance of their friendship. They were soulmates, it was as simple as that and no boy or girl or one of a kind Manolo would ever be more important than each other.

* * *

Blair shivered in the cold night air as she hit the call button on her cell. Nate picked up on the first ring. She could picture him in her mind, his eyes bloodshot and his hair standing on end from where he'd been running his hands through it anxiously. She gave him what little news she had about his mother. "When are you coming home then?"

"Times like this make me wish I still had the Spectator jet. I am on the next flight out, but that isn't for a few hours," he paused as though he was about to say something else.

"And?" Blair prompted.

Nate sighed, "I don't know what to do. I came in early to prepare for a major presentation but I've just been sitting here staring at my computer screen since I got the call. Blair… what am I going to do if she-"

"Don't even say it Archibald."

"She's been begging me to come visit her for months but I've just been so busy and now-"

"And now you're going to stop wallowing in your thoughts," Blair instructed briskly, "You're going to get someone to cover your presentation, you're going to make arrangements for someone to take over the running of the European branch of the Spectator for a few months, you're going to go home and pack a bag and get on the plane to New York. Once you're onboard the flight, you can turn your brain back on and think of your 'what-ifs' and 'if-onlys'. OK?"

"Are you going to text me this as a checklist the minute I hang up so I don't forget?" She could picture the wry smile creasing his features.

"You know it!"

"You can't boss me around like I'm one of your minions, you know?"

"I never could. Not that I didn't try…" her voice trailed off knowingly and he chuckled halfheartedly.

"I'll listen to your instructions just this once. Keep me posted on what's going on?"

"Of course, see you in a few hours."

"And Blair?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"Just a part of NJBC code, Nate." Blair smiled as she hung up. Her fingers were a blur of motion as she quickly typed out a text and pressed send.

Three thousand five hundred miles away, Nathaniel Archibald heard his phone ping with Blair's itinerary and almost smiled.

* * *

Eleven miles away, across the bridge in Dumbo, Dan Humphrey pressed 'End' on his cell after his call with Serena. He remembered a Gossip Girl post he'd written back in his sophomore year of high school about how most great stories began with someone mysteriously disappearing or a stranger coming into town. Nate was no stranger to the Upper East Side, but he'd been gone so long he might as well have been. He poured some Folgers into his usual chipped mug and thought 'Things are about to get very interesting.'

* * *

A/N: This is my first fic so I would love to get feedback on it, so please do leave some comments! I am trying to follow the original show's canon as much as possible, so if I get anything wrong in the future please let me know. Also let me know if there are any factual/logical inconsistencies. It's going to be a multichapter fic and I haven't planned any lemons or limey bits so far but that might change. Will update the summary to include a warning if it does.

Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Nate accepted his drink from the stewardess with a tight smile before sinking deeper into his plush seat. In spite of Blair's instructions not to worry until later, he had worried. A lot. He'd received a text message from Blair right before take-off 'UR MOM STBL. DNT WORRY, NJOY FLITE'. While it didn't put him completely at ease, it did go a way to assuage his anxiety. He knew he should try to sleep, but he had too much adrenaline rattling around his body. The dim lighting of the cabin and the scotch in hand made him almost contemplative.

It had been 5 years since he'd left the Upper East Side. At first he'd left just to get away from the humiliation of his failed mayoral campaign. He'd been leading the polls until the story of his affair with Katherine was leaked to the press. Chuck had been convinced that the Buckleys were behind it even though Nate had publicly distanced himself from the Vanderbilt name. With every major newspaper and website painting him as a glorified gigolo and digging up stories of his promiscuous past (his summer with Chuck's black book in particular) his ratings plummeted. Even the Spectator, to maintain its unbiased image, had to run shaming stories about its owner. The stock prices plummeted and Nate was worried about his company going under. Both Blair and Chuck approached him independently with offers to invest and keep his company afloat, but Nate couldn't accept a handout. He'd spent 5 years building the Spectator into a major news publisher singlehandedly, it was up to him to save it. It was the only thing he had left now that his political career was down the toilet. So he called a meeting of the board of investors and made his case. The investors had already been impressed with the Spectator's unbiased reporting of the scandal and were further impressed by Nate's presentation. He dropped out of the mayoral race several months before the election and focussed the rest of his time on building the Spectator back up. The day before the election he left New York to set up the European headquarters of the Spectator in London and he had never looked back.

He had never intended to leave forever, but life in London suited him. It was as if after 28 years in the Upper East Side he could finally breathe. He had always recognised the superficiality of the company he had kept but now he could finally admit to himself something he had long suspected: he did not belong there.

Vanessa had once told him that she believed in him, but a different version of him. A few minutes earlier at the same party he had said to Blair 'you can't change who you are'. They were both right. Nate had tried to fit into the Upper East Side mould all his life but he couldn't change who he was and that was the different version of him that Vanessa had seen.

London provided him with relative anonymity, and he could finally just be himself. No one expected things from him because he was an Archibald or a Vanderbilt or because of who his friends were. After being played by Juliet, Ivy and Lola he'd built protective walls around himself, to save himself from being taken advantage of again. When Sage had lied to him about her age, it was the last straw. They'd eventually gotten back together but he had never fully relaxed and they had soon broken up (the age gap didn't help matters much either). After that he had never dated anyone seriously, content instead with his friendships and his work.

It was nice to finally be just 'Nate'. He made friends, went to dinner parties, even dated. No one knew who he was and he loved it. Of course the Spectator had taken off in a major way across the pond as well, but Nate had chosen to remain out of the limelight. He did the occasional interview and people did recognise him at times but all they saw was a handsome, young businessman not Manhattan royalty. An image he had created for himself all on his own and that pleased him enormously.

With distance and maturity he saw the Upper East Side as the toxic, incestuous cesspit that it was. And he wanted no part of it. He hadn't been back since the day he had left. His mother flew out to see him often. He saw his old friends when they stopped by in London but those meetings were sporadic at best and a part of him was always glad when they were gone and then he could return to his drama-free existence. But now he was going back and he had to make sure he didn't slip into old habits again. He was a new and improved Nate and he had to stay that way.

The taste of plain water in his mouth jerked him out of his thoughts and he realised that only ice remained in his glass. He signalled the stewardess for another drink before slipping into his thoughts once more.

* * *

Serena was waiting for him at Arrivals dressed in a short denim shirtdress, holding a vast bouquet of lilies. He wondered if she realised that lilies were almost always associated with death, but soon dismissed the notion. Serena never put much thought into her actions.

"How is she?" he asked after kissing her hello. She told him she'd tell him on the way. He could tell from her caution that the news was not good. The minute he'd strapped himself into the passenger seat of her silver Mercedes convertible (since when did Serena drive herself around? What happened to town cars?), he turned to her expectantly.

"Your mom is out of surgery and stable, but oh Natie," her voice broke and her blue eyes filled with tears, "they say she suffered some irreversible brain damage. She's in a coma." She hastily wiped her eyes as she continued pulling out of the parking lot. "I don't know all the medical details of it, they insisted that they discuss it only with family."

Nate took a deep breath, "Alright," he replied shortly before turning his head to look at the buildings passing by. It was a lot to take in. Serena wisely didn't say anything, realising he needed time to process the information. Forty minutes later he was being ushered into a private, white walled room by a kindly nurse.

* * *

"Mr. Archibald I won't beat around the bush here," Dr. Green said briskly, "your mother has suffered significant internal injuries. We were able to operate and stem the bleeding and she is stable now."

"But?" Nate asked quietly, staring at the floor, refusing to make eye contact with the older woman.

"But she had suffered some amount of brain damage which has put her into a coma. We can't determine the extent of the damage until she wakes up."

Nate looked up at the word 'until', the hope unmistakable in his eyes.

"Perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully. While your mother is showing high levels of brain activity and is breathing on her own, I cannot guarantee that she will ever wake from this coma," the doctor relented a little when she saw his crestfallen face, "However, the signs are positive that she will wake so do not give up hope just yet."

"What can I do to help her?"

"Visit her regularly, talk to her, read to her, play her favourite music, whatever she enjoys. We are doing everything we can from the medical angle but studies have shown that the voices of friends and family can help speed up a coma patient's recovery. Would you like to see your mother now?"

He nodded his assent and Dr. Green led him to Anne Archibald's room. He glanced briefly at his friends who were still gathered in the waiting area. He caught Blair's eye and she gave him an encouraging smile. He tried to draw some strength from it.

Dr. Green had warned him about the sight that awaited him, but Nate thought nothing could ever prepare him for this. His mother was a pale shrunken husk of a woman, the tubes running in and out of her seemed to have more substance than she did. The plastic covers he'd been forced to wear on his shoes crunched under his feet as he made his way to her bedside. He felt tears creep into his eyes as he reached out his gloved hand to stroke her blonde hair, ignoring the dried blood that was clumped into it. Dr. Green excused herself discreetly and a nurse brought in a chair for him. He sat at her bedside, holding her hand, the tears coursing down his face for what felt like hours. He didn't dare speak at first, afraid that her tenuous grasp on life would be shattered if he did, before he remembered Dr. Green's advice.

He took her hand in his and began to speak. He wanted to say he was sorry. Sorry for disappointing her. For abandoning her in New York. For never visiting. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her but his words and voice failed him. Instead he talked about one of his favourite childhood memories, about the summer they spent in Maine when he six and he had been allowed to steer his father's boat for the first time. He wanted to believe her hand had twitched or tightened imperceptibly about his but her hand remained motionless, as cold as ice.

* * *

When he finally left his mother's room hours later, he found only Blair waiting for him outside. He guessed she'd sent everyone else away, knowing he would be in no mood to talk. She silently fell in step beside him as he walked out of the hospital. She didn't try to touch him or embrace him, she just sat silently next to him in the town car as it drove them to the Archibald townhouse. She'd sensed he might want to stay there instead of the Empire so he could feel closer to his mother. Nate was filled once again with a deep appreciation for Blair. She had always known him better than he knew himself that was why she was the only one out of his old friend group he had bothered to keep in touch with. Even now as she sat quietly she radiated solidity and reassurance. He felt comforted just to be in her presence.

The car stopped in front of his mother's house (it no longer felt like his) and he got out. He was about to walk up the steps when he remembered something and pulled open the car door, "My mother's room-" he began.

"Serena and I have already made arrangements to have her shifted to a private suite in the Lily van der Woodsen wing where she'll have a full time private nurse. They're just waiting until they can safely move her," Blair replied, knowing his question before he uttered the words.

Nate grinned at her gratefully. He straightened up and started to turn away. The tinted window of the town car was slowly rolling up when Nate impulsively stuck his hand out to stop it. "Wanna come inside for a bit?"

Blair glanced at the clock on the dashboard, it was almost 6pm and she hadn't been home since the night before. She felt hot and sticky and covered in hospital germs. All she really wanted to do was go home, take a hot shower, call Henry and fall into bed. But then she remembered what was waiting for her at home, rather who. And Nate needed her. She could see the desperation in his eyes that he was trying so hard to conceal. "Yes," she said, climbing out of the town car.

Anne Archibald's housekeeper, Jane, greeted them at the door. Blair slipped off her shoes and curled up on the chaise in the living room while Jane went off to make them some tea. Nate had smiled when she had suggested it, remembering the British housekeeper touting tea as a cure-all for everything from a scraped knee to chicken pox. He followed Jane into the kitchen to ask if she had any Darjeeling tea, knowing it was Blair favourite.

"Remember when-" he started to say upon re-entering the living room but stopped short when he saw that Blair had fallen asleep. He watched her for a few minutes, a contemplative look on his face. Even in sleep she managed to convey a mischievous vitality. He grabbed the cashmere shawl off his mother's fauteuil and draped it over Blair before dimming the lights and tiptoeing out silently.

* * *

Chuck Bass checked his phone for the umpteenth time as he poured himself another scotch. No messages. He'd called the hospital a while ago and they had confirmed that Blair had left the hospital with Nate hours ago. It was nearing 11 o' clock and he had no idea where Blair was. Alright, he knew where she was, he just didn't know what she was doing. 'She's avoiding you,' whispered a snide voice from the back of his mind and he knew it to be true. She had been avoiding him for weeks. He wondered if she did it deliberately or if he had just slipped lower down her list of priorities. His fingers tightened around the crystal tumbler.

He remembered her at the hospital earlier that day, dismissing him. "Get some sleep," she had said, but he understood the subtext: _go away, you are not needed here._ He heard the same messages in everything she said, everything she did. Every time she stayed late at work he heard her voice in his head saying 'I don't need you. You are not important.' She didn't want him anymore either, Chuck couldn't even remember the last time they had had sex. Things had gotten so bad that 10 days ago he had moved into the guest bedroom. Blair hadn't said a word to him about it. He sometimes wondered if she had even noticed.

He longed for the days when their relationship was tumultuous and dramatic. Of course it had been unbelievably painful, but it had also been exciting. Blair was the most passionate woman he had ever met. She was ambitious and intelligent yet she was also vulnerable and weak. She had needed him for almost everything. She had fooled everyone into thinking she was strong, but that as a façade. Inside she was dependent upon him, his advice, his interference in her life. And she in turn had tried to interfere in his. It had rarely worked, he prided himself on being one step ahead of her. He enjoyed their little games. Enjoyed the inevitable explosions of anger and the passionate making up that followed. He had thought at one time that Blair would die without him; that their lives and destinies were irreversibly intertwined but lately he felt the threads of fate that held them together were slowly unravelling.

He checked the clock on the mantelpiece of the sitting room again. A quarter past eleven. And his wife, his _wife_ , was out with another man. _His_ wife hadn't texted or called. He was suddenly filled with a jealous rage. He had thought he'd outgrown his jealousy of Archibald and Blair's friendship, but that had been before, when he and Blair had been rock solid. The petty jealousies and insecurities that he had thought long gone began to rise within him once again, squirming up his throat, begging for release. With a violent scream of rage he threw the half-empty tumbler across the room. It crashed into the clock, shattering its face into pieces. He instantly felt a bit better. Carried by the momentum of his rage he trashed the sitting room, providing an outlet to the feelings of inadequacy he'd been feeling for the last few years. It had been too long since he had last vented his frustrations in such a physical way. Being with Blair had certainly tamed him, but for the first time in a long time he started to think that maybe that hadn't been for the best after all.

Standing amidst the debris of what had been their sitting room, Chuck Bass felt like his old self again. If he wanted to recapture the passion and drama of his relationship with Blair, there was only one way. He felt the familiar buzz of adrenaline rising through his veins as from the depths of his mind came the stirrings of a new plot.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for your response guys! Nothing makes me happier than to know people are reading my work. Have to warn you guys, this is a Nair fic. I haven't listed Blair and Nate as a pair in the summary because I hope to explore the individuality of the characters through the fic and also because I might not make the characters end up together. But I am aiming for Nair, so. xoxo


	3. Chapter 3

Jennifer Humphrey had been seated at a table in the middle of the heaving bar for all of ten minutes and she had already been hit on twice. Not that she minded too much, it was pretty flattering after all. She rolled her eyes at the thought of how many more admirers would approach the table as soon as her companion for the evening arrived. 'Speak of the devil,' she thought as she saw Serena enter the room and scan it. Jenny raised a hand to attract her attention and smiled amusedly at how oblivious Serena was to the many glances of admiration being directed her way. As usual Serena looked like she had tumbled out of the pages of Harper's Bazaar with all the nonchalance of someone who wore whatever fell out of their closet in the morning. Serena's effortlessly gorgeous style was something Jenny tried to incorporate into her designs but had so far failed to do.

She stood up to briefly kiss her friend hello. "So, what's up? You said you had something to tell me?" Jenny said. Serena ordered them both drinks before shrugging off her coat and launching into the story of Anne Archibald's car accident.

"Oh my God, this is terrible. Poor Nate!" Jenny exclaimed when Serena had finished her story. She fished a tissue out of her handbag and handed it to her friend to wipe away the few tears that had inevitably slipped out in the retelling. She and Serena discussed the matter briefly and Jenny resolved to visit Nate as soon as she could. "I can't believe my idiot brother didn't tell me when I stopped by his place this afternoon."

"He's just been distracted ever since his beloved baby girl was born," Serena replied with a grin.

"Ugh, tell me about it. That's kind of why I wanted to see you today, Dan and Vanessa have asked me to be godmother aaaaannnnddd-" Jenny drew out that last word, her face breaking into a huge grin, "they're going to ask you to be one too!"

Serena let out a high pitched yelp of glee, "Are you serious? That is so exciting! I'd love to be little Alicia's godmother! Wait, are you sure Vanessa doesn't mind?"

"Are you kidding? After witnessing the barren wasteland that was your marriage to Dan, I think even your most diehard Gossip Girl fan would give up on you two ever getting back together."

"Oh come on, it wasn't _that_ bad…" Jenny gave Serena a look and Serena blushed and admitted, "OK, it was pretty bad."

"Eric and Michael called it 'The Desolation of Smaug.'"

"Hey!" Serena swatted at Jenny.

Jenny leaned back in her seat to avoid Serena's swipe and laughingly continued, "In fact, according to them your entire relationship fit the titles of the Hobbit trilogy; An Unexpected Journey – no one ever expected you to date, ever. Except maybe Dan, but he doesn't count. Then there was your marriage, aka the Desolation of Smaug. The last movie was going to be called There and Back Again-"

"Oh my God, please no!" Serena shuddered.

"But fortunately it was retitled the Battle of the Five Armies which, they haven't figured out how to make fit yet but they are working on it."

"Please remind me to give my brother and his supernerd fiancé a giant kick the next time I'm in San Francisco?" Serena hid her face behind her hands in embarrassment.

Jenny signalled the bartender for another round of drinks and playfully kicked Serena under the table. "I have more news. I didn't just call you for a girl's night out y'know? I also have a bit of a favour to ask."

"Do tell! I am officially intrigued," Serena sad before taking a delicate sip of her martini.

"So you know that girl I've been seeing?"

"The one who is still in the closet despite it being the 21st century?"

"Yes, after I got promoted to Creative Director of Waldorf Designs last week I kinda asked her to move in with me…"

"And? What did she say? Wait, is she going to pretend that you two are just roommates, like they did in the 60s?"

"She said yes! And she's going to come out, only she wants to do it with a coming out party. She wants you to plan it!"

Serena leaped across the table to hug her friend, "Congratulations! I can't believe you guys are moving in together! It's only been a month."

"Yeah, I don't know Ser, I think she might be The One," Jenny replied, which caused Serena to hug her even tighter.

"I'm going to get us some champagne!" Serena exclaimed, wandering off to the bar.

Jenny leaned back in her chair and smiled. Life was really starting to come together for her. After her disastrous high school career she had often wondered if she would ever manage to get her life back on track, but moving to London and attending Central Saint Martins had changed everything for her. While studying for her degree, she had worked part-time at a local designer's atelier and she had learned so much. She had thought her previous internship with Eleanor Waldorf had been a good introduction into the world of fashion, but she had been completely wrong.

Working at Modeste had been eye-opening. The founder, an eccentric woman named Jill Clarkson had taken Jenny under her wing. Jenny, finally in a fashion environment without temperamental druggie models and a head designer who tried to take credit for work, had thrived. Jill hadn't just taught her about fashion, she had taught her about life. When Jenny, at 19 had suddenly found herself increasingly attracted to her female roommate, Jill had been the one who'd comforted and consoled her through her confusion and denial. She had been so far removed from the Upper East Side and couldn't imagine talking to any of her old friends about it, not that they had been available, everyone had been dealing with the aftermath of Dan's novel and the ultimate revelation of Gossip Girl's identity.

Jenny had been confused and depressed for several weeks. How could she, Jenny Humphrey, who had been obsessed with boys and especially Nate Archibald since she was 13, be a lesbian? But then she started seeing her own actions in a different light; maybe her girlcrush on Serena had been more than that? Maybe her jealousy over Nate and Vanessa's relationship hadn't been because of her love for Nate, but because of her love for Vanessa? She had tortured herself with such meaningless questions for weeks before finally confiding in Jill. Jill was the one who told her to stop raking over the past for clues because the past didn't matter, what mattered was how she felt now. It didn't matter that she was only just realising it, if that was her truth, then it was her truth. She had been available with a ready ear if Jenny needed to talk and plenty of needlework if Jenny needed distracting. And when Jenny had finished college, and gotten a job at a major French fashion house, Jill had given her a gold measuring tape and said, "The only orientation you ever need to worry about love, is whether a blouse is on back-to-front."

The roommate Jenny had fallen for turned out to be straight, but soon after Jenny met an indie musician and embarked on her first real relationship. She had even invited her to New York for Christmas and they had had a wonderful time. Jenny chuckled as she remembered how she had casually come out to her brother on the phone.

"I'm bringing a guest to spend Christmas week with us, so you'd better clean up the apartment!" she had said.

"The apartment has been clutter-free since you moved out and took your 10,000 cloth samples with you," Dan had retorted.

"Well, it better be, because my new girlfriend is a real neat freak."

"Oh yea-What? Your gi-girlfriend?"

"Yes."

"You're a -?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"Yup."

"Wow. Damn! And she's coming home for Christmas?"

"Yup."

"Wow. OK. Well then Dad and I had better order a bigger turkey," Dan had said and that had been that.

Jenny was startled out of her musings by the loud pop of a champagne bottle being uncorked. Serena was back. She turned to wave flirtily at a handsome redhead at the bar, "Matt, record executive, wants to take me to dinner. Now. How rude! As if I'd ever abandon my lovely friend on girl's night," she told Jenny, "I told him to try Friday instead." Jenny bit back laughter. Serena handed her a champagne flute and together they toasted the future.

* * *

Blair blinked her eyes open sleepily in the darkened room, feeling quite serene for the 3 seconds before reality hit her. "What time is it?!" she asked, groping blindly in the dark for her phone. Finally her fingers closed around the slim metallic device and she woke it. 8:59pm. 'Oh thank God!' she thought. She had almost missed calling Henry. She quickly dialled his number. He answered on the first ring, "Mom!" he cried breathlessly, "I thought you'd forgotten to call!"

"And break a promise to you? Never." After all, Blair knew first-hand what it was like to have forgetful, neglectful parents. She was determined not to be the same. "Are you having fun at your grandparents'? I hope Grandpa Cyrus isn't allowing you to stay up past your bedtime?"

"Of course not Mom, I'm in bed already!"

"Really? Then why did you sound so breathless when you answered the phone?" Blair said knowingly. Her son had clearly not inherited his parents' lying genes. He was so transparent.

"Oh erm, that was because I gargled extra-long with mouthwash just before you rang so I ran out of breath."

Blair laughed, maybe she should take up Dorota on her offer to teach Henry to lie after all. He was going to get into so much trouble in the future if he kept this up. "Uh huh, I believe you. Now get to bed! And no more water fights with Grandpa Cyrus."

"But we weren't having- Hey! Grandpa, no fair, you can't spray me when I'm on the phone with mom! I mean, erm, Grandpa was spraying me with mosquito repellent, because there are a lot of mosquitoes in Newport. Yeah, exactly, that's exactly what just happened."

"Of course it is honey, now you'd better hang up before he sprays you again. Love you darling, goodnight."

Her son barely mumbled a goodnight in response before hanging up. He was clearly having a good time. She slipped her phone into her pocket and stood up, having reoriented herself during the phone call. She let out a yelp when she turned toward the door and saw a dark figure silhouetted against it.

"Jesus Nate, at least turn the lights on!" she scolded, one hand on her rapidly beating heart. Nate reached over and flipped the light switch but didn't say anything. He was watching her intently, his expression inscrutable. Blair felt a flutter in her chest. She instantly dismissed it as an after effect of the scare Nate had given her. "You gave me such a scare! It's 9 o' clock already, you should have woken me up!" Blair admonished him, trying to hide her nervousness. But Nate knew her too well for that.

"You look cute when you're asleep," he teased, enjoying the soft blush that crept onto Blair's face. "Jane made your favourite for dinner, so I hope you stay."

Blair looked at her watch and sniffed exaggeratedly. "I guess I could spare a few more minutes," she said, her face breaking into a grin.

* * *

Blair got home past midnight. Once she and Nate had started talking they hadn't been able to stop. They'd hardly seen each other over the last five years and they'd had a lot to catch up on. Something was different about Nate. The two of them seemed to have a lot more in common now. She remembered struggling to find topics of conversation back when they used to date. Perhaps, London had changed Nate for the better.

She tiptoed into the penthouse tipsily and stopped short. She had been burgled. The happy buzz from the food and wine she had enjoyed at Nate's was replaced instantly by cold sobriety. She walked to the centre of the room and took a closer look. No, she hadn't been burgled. Someone had deliberately trashed her living room. Her beloved Gabriel Argy-Rousseau vase lay shattered on the floor, the ceramic dust adhering to her Kashan rug in a sticky pool of spilt Scotch. Her Anselm Kiefer had fallen off the wall. Blair rushed to examine it and was relieved to see the painting hadn't suffered any damage. Who did this? The answer was obvious. Chuck.

"What. The. Actual. Fuck?!" she bit out the words, her lividity barely contained. She clenched her fists tightly and forced herself to take deep, calming breaths. Once upon a time, she would have seen a trashed room like this and immediately gone after Chuck to comfort him. She would have been sick with worry about his state of mind. Her heart would have been aching with love and hurt. But today she felt nothing except hot, boiling anger. Trashing a hotel room at 21 might have been OK, but Chuck was 32 now, he needed to grow up. He needed to control his temper or at least find a proper outlet for his frustrations _not trash her painstakingly decorated living room._ Her anger surged again when another thought struck her; what if Henry had been at home? Chuck and she had sworn that they would ensure Henry had a happy, stable home unlike the homes they had grown up in. What if Henry had seen? What if Henry had been there and had gotten hurt?

Her mind took her back to the time Chuck had hurt her; after she had told him that Louis had proposed to her. She felt her forehead bead with sweat. She had tried to free herself from his grip, but he had been too strong. He had grasped her by the shoulders and shaken her, slammed her against the window. The memory of the cool glass against her back as sharp as the shard of glass that had cut her cheek when Chuck punched a hole through the window. No one likes to think of someone they know and love as abusive, so she had written the incident off as a drunken mistake. The hot shame she felt whenever she thought about it hadn't faded over the years. How could anyone with any pride still love someone after they had treated them the way Chuck had treated her then? But she had. She was that pathetic. She shook her head to free herself of the thought. Some things were just not worth thinking about.

She looked around the debris scattered around her living room again and wondered what had made Chuck do it. She was surprised that the thought had entered so belatedly into her head, but if she was being honest with herself, part of her really did not care why he had done it. She was used to Chuck's temper tantrums. He had not had one in years, but she knew enough of him to know the trigger for the fit was probably no different than it had been several years ago. Something must have not gone his way again. It was rarely more complicated than that with Chuck. She could hardly believe she was considering the situation so dispassionately.

Years ago, when she and Chuck were newlyweds, she had come home to a scene like this one and had been overwhelmed with concern for him. She had rushed upstairs with tears in her eyes to soothe his raw nerves and to bathe his cut fingers. She had tears in her eyes today too, but they were for the precious antiques and possessions that Chuck had ruined in his tantrum. She felt indifferent, almost cold when she thought of Chuck. What had her life come to, that the thought of a broken vase hurt her more than the thought of her broken husband?

She retrieved some cleaning supplies from under the sink where the maid kept them and returned to the living room. The Upper East Side was full of prying eyes and wagging tongues, the last thing she needed was for the new maid to share further stories of the failing Waldorf-Bass marriage with other people. It wasn't as if Serena hadn't found out about Chuck moving into the spare bedroom mere hours after it had happened. Serena had fired her maid instantly, and so had Blair. The incident had made Blair ache for Dorota's discretion and her motherly concern. Dorota would have known what Blair should do. Her marriage was falling apart and she didn't even know why or how to stop it from happening. She had thought she had found her happy-ever-after the day she married Chuck Bass. But of course, life could never come that easy to her. Why did she constantly have to work so hard for every little piece of happiness? Where had she gone wrong?

The thwack of the plastic gloves as she slipped them on roused Blair from her self-pity. Now wasn't the time to wallow, it was time to work. She would channel Julie Andrews and Mary Poppins for just one night and hope that Audrey would forgive her. She steeled herself, tamped down on the despair that threatened to engulf her and briskly set about cleaning the room. "Well begun is half done," she quoted bravely, her voice with just a touch of a quiver in it. Two hours later, she shucked off the gloves and cleared away the cleaning supplies. No one would ever know to ask her, but if ever they did, she knew she would be lying if she said that the bucket of soapy water she carried didn't contain just the merest hint of tears.

* * *

A/N: I realise the chapters have a lot of reminiscing at the moment, but that's only because I'm trying to give you an idea of who the characters are and what they've been up to in the last 6 years. I'm hoping to make the fic a lot more action oriented soon. Thanks to all who reviewed the prev. chapter! Your reviews mean a lot. xoxo.


	4. Chapter 4

Chuck Bass was surprised to see his wife waiting for him at the breakfast table the next morning. She usually left for work at 8 a.m. and it was already past 9:30. "Good morning," she greeted him cheerfully. It instantly put Chuck on his guard.

"What do you want, Waldorf? You're almost never home this late in the morning," Chuck said, helping himself to a brioche and smearing it with onion chutney.

"I overslept. I was up all night cleaning because _somebody_ ravaged our living room," Blair answered tightly, tracing the rim of her teacup in an effort to control her temper.

Chuck raised an eyebrow and took a bite of his breakfast before replying, "Last I checked, that was what we had maids for."

"The maid gossip grapevine in the Upper East Side is notorious for its speed and efficiency. Unlike you Chuck, I have been pretty happy since Gossip Girl shut down and have no intention of having our private affairs whispered about in public again." Blair rose from the table. Chuck was impossible to talk to.

She was halfway out of the dining room when he spoke again, his voice dripping with its customary smug arrogance, "If this is about the photo of me and that leggy thoroughbred that was splashed all over the gossip pages last week, I can assure you-"

"It isn't," she cut him off, "It's about our son. Remember him? About 4 foot 10, brown hair, brown eyes? Named Henry? He's flying home tonight."

Chuck turned to look at her balefully, "Of course I remember."

Blair sighed. Perhaps she had gone too far. Despite all of Chuck's many faults, he really was a good father. "He's coming home tonight," she uttered tiredly, "and we're sleeping in separate bedrooms. What do we tell him if he asks?"

"And here I was thinking you hadn't noticed I'd moved out," he said quietly.

"Of course I noticed Chuck," Blair's voice and expression softened, "you don't stay married to someone for 10 years and not notice when they're gone."

Chuck stood up and crossed the space between them almost tentatively. "Blair," he whispered softly. He reached out hesitantly and fondled her cheek, waiting for her to pull away. She didn't. Her eyes fell shut and she licked her lips nervously. "Blair," he whispered again, his breath a warm caress across her trembling eyelashes. "Do you want to, maybe, try again?"

Blair had barely nodded her assent before he crashed his lips into hers. Their mouths melded together almost seamlessly, their bodies moulding into one entity with no beginning and no end. Blair returned Chuck's embrace with equal ferocity. She put aside her misgivings for a minute and tried to enjoy herself. It had been so long since she had been held and touched like this; it was as if her body was waking from a deep slumber, reintroduced to the pleasures of the flesh. Their chemistry was undeniable. She found the fingers of her left hand tangling themselves in Chuck's hair of their own accord, while her right palm pressed itself tightly against his lapel, trying to feel his heartbeat.

Chuck groaned into her mouth and deepened the kiss, his hand edging past the hem of her skirt. Blair hastily pulled away. This was moving too fast. "Chuck, stop. I'm not ready for this" she said.

Chuck ignored her protestations, his roving hands continuing their work. "Come on, I know you want to," he breathed. He reached for her lips again.

"I said stop!" Blair repeated insistently, pushing him away. Her irritation with him returned in full force. Why did he _never_ just listen? "I know it's been a while, but I can't. Not right now," she took a step away from him and continued, "Given how things have been between us for the past few months, I don't think we should be rushing into anything."

"We're married; we're not exactly rushing, we're already there."

"We can't solve all our problems with sex, Chuck."

"We sure as hell can try." Chuck reached for her again but Blair swiftly sidestepped him.

"There are branches of science other than Chemistry."

Blair could almost hear the words of his reply before he said it. "Biology comes to mind," Chuck smirked. For someone who prided himself on being unpredictable, Chuck was sometimes surprisingly trite.

"I want us to try couples counselling," Blair said briskly, finally getting to the point she had been waiting all morning to bring up. She'd woken that day determined to fix her marriage by any means possible. Blair Waldorf was not a failure.

"I thought you were keen to keep our private affairs private," Chuck snapped.

"The process is confidential, Chuck."

"I don't need a random stranger with a degree in head-shrinking to tell me that I am messed up because my mother abandoned me and my father was an jerk, or that I need to listen to you more and that we need to communicate better." Chuck looked away from Blair, his jaw tightening angrily.

Blair's temper was fraying too. She took a deep breath to calm herself, "But we do need to communicate better and a marriage counsellor can help us do it." She held out her hand and pleaded gently, "We're so out of sync, Chuck. We need help. I said I wanted to try again, don't you?"

Chuck let out an angry sigh before conceding and taking her hand. "Of course, 3 words, 8 letters," he said, placing a kiss on the inside of her wrist.

"I love you too," Blair replied softly and wondered why the words sounded hollow to her ears.

* * *

Serena flipped through her day planner, wondering if she had enough time before her next meeting to check in on Nate. 'It doesn't matter,' she thought, reaching for her phone, 'people can wait for the CEO.' Serena had started her own event management company right out of college, growing from a single desk in her bedroom at her mother's penthouse to a modest suite of offices in a high rise building on Madison Avenue. When she and Dan had gotten divorced, he'd cited the increased turnover of her company as a reason to get more alimony from her. Although Dan was a respected and well known writer now, he hadn't exactly been raking in the big bucks. Fortunately, a loophole in their prenuptial contract had allowed Serena to get away with not paying him any alimony. 'Good, being impoverished is good for one's art,' Serena thought bitterly as she recollected their long drawn out, very public divorce. It had been demeaning to see the intimate details of her married life splashed across the pages of every newspaper in town. They had since patched up their friendship, Blair having played the role of mediator, and had become quite close. Vanessa had helped Blair to do it. Her years abroad and then her subsequent time spent in Hollywood had eroded the insecurities that had constantly plagued her in her teens. Now Dan and Vanessa were happy together, having just welcomed their first child into the world.

Serena was finally happy too. Her mother hadn't been the best role model, with her constantly flitting from one husband to the other, forgiving them of unforgiveable things. Lily had forgiven Bart for faking his own death and abandoning her with all of Bass Industries' problems. She had forgiven William for deserting her, giving her fake cancer _and_ scheming against her with Ivy Dickens. Serena sometimes wondered if Lily had a single feminist bone in her body. Lily had defined her entire existence by the men she had married, leading to Eric and Serena growing up in a very unstable home environment. For so long Serena too had defined herself by the men she dated, following the subliminal example her mother had set for her. When her marriage collapsed, Serena had found herself lost. She had never been single for long, but suddenly there she was by herself, unable to date because of the divorce proceedings. She could finally just stop. Get to know herself. She didn't have to go careening headfirst from one relationship to the next. It was the Upper East Side edition of Eat, Pray, Love. Blair had been there for her every step of the way and they had grown closer than they'd ever been before.

Jenny had remained neutral during the divorce, and once the decree absolute arrived, she had taken Serena out to paint the town red. They had become close during Serena's marriage to Dan, the two girls with a lot more in common than they had previously thought. Blair had always been 'boringly married' as Jenny put it, and Serena had really enjoyed having another single friend to share the experience with her. Since then it had been Jenny and Serena, the life of every party they attended. It wasn't like before, when Serena had been friends with Georgina. Serena didn't party hard anymore. She didn't do drugs. It was hard to lead that kind of lifestyle when you had to run your own business in the morning. Hangovers and spreadsheets do not mix. Jenny and she enjoyed a quieter kind of friendship. Both as comfortable with hanging out and giving each other pedicures as they were with getting plastered in a bar. It was a solid, supportive friendship. With Jenny and Blair by her side, Serena finally realised the importance of having a squad, and she loved it.

She hadn't dated seriously since her divorce with Dan. She didn't want to. She was content. She had always turned up her nose at people who said 'single and loving it', it seemed so cliché. But here she was, 31 years old, in love with her job and with no intention of having a serious boyfriend in the near future. Life was perfect.

She quickly brought up Nate's number on her iPhone and pressed 'call'. "Hi Natie," she cooed, "How are you doing this morning?"

Nate sounded mildly hungover when he replied, "Annoyed. Grandfather is flying into town."

"That sounds wonderful." Serena's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"I don't know if I should dread him trying to woo me back into the family or dread him not trying at all," Nate grumbled.

"While the former would be a pain in the ass, I don't think your fragile ego could take the latter," Serena quipped.

"How droll." Serena could almost see him rolling his eyes over the phone. She leaned back in her seat and swivelled to face the window.

"I called to ask if you needed any help with anything, though considered your current predicament I am rethinking the offer."

"No, I can handle grandfather. However, if Tripp decides to come down…" Nate trailed away slyly.

"Now look who's being droll." The phone on Serena's desk buzzed and her secretary's tinny voice chirped through announcing that her next appointment had arrived. "I have to go," she said into her mobile, "But you know where to find me if you actually need any help."

She hung up and swivelled back around to her desk, telling her secretary to send the client in. The love of her life, work, beckoned.

* * *

Blair cut a striking figure as she walked down the bustling Manhattan streets. Dressed in a knee-length fuchsia circle skirt, with a simple lime green cotton blouse she stood out in the sea of colour by being brighter, bolder and something undefinably Blair. She no longer wore headgear. She had not felt like wearing a hat or headband for many years now, but she could never pinpoint why. Perhaps she had outgrown them. Or perhaps she no longer felt interesting enough to wear one.

She was in a foul mood after the scene with Chuck. She knew she should feel happy that he had agreed to attend marital therapy with her, she knew she had technically won that round, but why did she feel like she had lost? On top of that, she was now late for work. Not that anyone would question her, she owned the place after all but it still rankled her. She liked spending the quiet hours of the morning in her office before the others arrived, it was when she got her actual design work done. Since she had taken Waldorf Designs public a few years ago, she barely had time to design any more. Luckily she had a bevy of talented designers to do it for her. Nevertheless, she liked to design so she still released an exclusive 'B for Waldorf' line every two years or so. And now she had missed her precious design time and for what? To make out with her husband?

OK, put that way it didn't sound as bad as she felt it was. Maybe her lack of sleep was affecting her mood. After she had cleaned the living room, she'd lain awake for the rest of the night, tossing and turning and trying to figure out her next move. Despite her recent irritation with him, deep down inside she still loved Chuck, didn't she? And they had a son. She needed to work on her marriage and as much as she hated the idea, couples counselling seemed like their best shot.

Chuck seemed to think that locking themselves away in the bedroom and screwing each other silly for two weeks straight would solve the problem, but Blair needed more than that. Sex would not resolve the deeper issues that ran through their marriage. Chemistry alone could not address why, after 11 years of marriage she still felt like she could not trust him. It wasn't about fidelity. She was certain he would take that part of his marriage vows seriously. It was about trusting him to not screw her over, to not put her up as collateral in some ridiculous business deal, to not ruin something she had worked hard on out of petty jealous or some assumed hurt.

In the weeks before their marriage they had come together to aid each other in their business dealings but that had fallen apart soon after. Chuck always thought he knew best and never took her advice. He kept secrets from her about his business dealings so she could never share in that part of his life. Simultaneously, he did not take her job seriously. He had once referred to it as her 'little' fashion empire. He did not understand why she had wanted to take Waldorf Designs public and when she had worked her fingers to the bone in the weeks leading up to the IPO, he had accused her of neglecting Henry. As if. What about when Chuck went off for weeks to Australia with no notice to oversee the Australian branch of Bass Industries? Regardless of her work load, Blair always made sure she came home to tuck Henry in at bedtime, often returning to work after he was fast asleep. When she was out of town, she made sure she called him. Chuck Bass was the last person she expected to have double standards about it, but then again, the disposable way in which he used to treat women did speak to misogyny. Take that picture in last week's papers of him and that famous socialite. It didn't matter to Blair because she knew Chuck would not cheat on her, but she did worry about the effect it would have on Henry. He had already gotten into a fight with an upperclassman the previous year about a similarly compromising picture of his father. The last thing she wanted was for her son to be bullied because his father was careless about the company he kept. She did not want her son to pick up his father's casual disregard for women either and start referring to them as 'leggy thoroughbreds'.

Wait, where was the slut-shaming Blair Waldorf of her teenage years? Blair almost cringed when she thought of her old attitudes. Growing up tended to have that effect on bitchy high schoolers. Facing sexism on all fronts during the IPO had really opened her eyes about such matters. She remembered complaining about it bitterly to Nate when she had stopped in London to meet with an investor. He had been surprisingly understanding and empathetic. He knew what it was like for people to constantly disrespect and underestimate you. She would never expect Chuck to understand. He would have probably used it as an excuse to get her to call off the IPO or worse, told her to 'man up'.

Sighing as she entered the elevator, Blair stamped her foot childishly. More things for them to talk about in therapy. So far she had 1200 items on the list starting with the hackneyed 'He never listens to me when I speak,' and ending with… well the list had not quite ended yet. The first thing she would do when she got to her office would be to pick up the phone and make that appointment.

* * *

Nate hung up Serena's call feeling slightly better. He dialed his chauffeur to get an update on his grandfather's whereabouts while simultaneously lighting up a cigarette. He had both picked up and quit the habit during his stay in London but he still turned to it sometimes when he was really stressed out. Like he was now. With Blair's encouragement and the help of a few bottles of wine he had finally worked up the nerve to call his grandfather and give him the bad news. William Vanderbilt had been his usual imperious self, demanding to know why he had not been told earlier and deciding to fly in first thing in the morning to oversee his daughter's care himself. Nate could not wait for him to show up at the hospital and question the care they were providing his child. Not. He was glad the Hippocratic Oath existed or he was sure the doctors would unplug his mother just to spite his grandfather. William Vanderbilt was not an easy man to like. However, a part of him felt relieved that his grandfather was coming. Anne Archibald did not have many friends and it would be good for her to have other visitors, even if she did not notice it in her comatose state. Tolerating his grandfather was a small price to pay.

He threw down the spent cigarette and stubbed it underfoot just as the town car rolled up. Time to face the music.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for turning Nate into a casual smoker. Not. I think smoking really suits his personality, though I don't think Blair would like it very much. Hope I got Chuck's personality right in the CB scene. He is _tough_ to write, mostly because 60% of his lines in the show are one liners! I think we're all caught up on all the character's backgrounds, except for the Darena divorce but I'll add that sometime later. I'd like to just point out that Chuck is not a villain in this fic, and neither is Dan - you'll find out more about their characters and their motivations in future chapters (though with Dan it'll probably be a cameo).

Next chapter, we have a time jump! Please read and review, xoxo.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N 1: So I had a bit of extra time because of the long holiday, so you're getting two chapters in this update! Please enjoy!

* * *

"Damn that mother-Chucker," Blair muttered, stepping onto the helipad at their 'cottage' in the Hamptons. Once upon a time helicopters had made her nervous, but after spending an entire summer commuting back and forth from the Hamptons to her office in NYC, she was used to it. However, despite the nervousness fading, she still had terrible motion sickness. Thank God for Dramamine.

It had been Chuck's idea of course. He had suggested it at couple's counselling. Chuck wanted to holiday in the Hamptons with Henry, Blair and he needed to work on their marriage, NYC to the Hamptons was 30 minute trip by helicopter, they owned one; it was easy to connect the dots. The fact that August was Blair's busiest month on account of New York Fashion Week being scheduled in the first week of September had crossed his mind several times, but he considered it part of the game. The more exhausted and guilty Blair felt about working long hours, the easier it would be to comfort her and get close to her. He had managed to work his way up from a reserved peck on the cheek in July to full blown spooning a few nights ago. He was waiting for her in the limo with his usual smug smirk on his face. Blair and he had a history with limos, perhaps tonight would finally be the night to defile that sacred space again.

Blair was so tired she didn't even notice her husband when she got into the limo, so she let out a yelp of surprise when a glass of champagne magically appeared before her nose.

"Chuck. What the hell?" she asked before gratefully grabbing the glass of bubbly, "Thanks, this is exactly what I need after the day I've had. The fabric from Paris arrived and it was the absolute wrong shade of cadmium orange, I had to send it all back. My schedule's been set back by weeks!"

Chuck listened patiently to her tirade. Alright, so maybe tonight was not the night to defile the limo, but that didn't mean they couldn't defile one of the rooms in the main house. Besides, he had missed this. Sometime during his marriage Blair's voice had turned into a steady drone of blah-blah-blahs to him. It was probably during the IPO. Or maybe that was one of the many things marriage did to one. Regardless, he knew she hated it when he didn't pay attention, so he had started to again after their first counselling session. Blair had always been so interesting and witty, how had he forgotten that? She had been right, going to couple's counselling had helped them to communicate better.

He seized upon a pause in Blair's account and said, "I've been thinking. This commute is really taking a toll on you, maybe we should return to the city early this summer. I'm sure Henry won't mind, I think he's missing the dank, grey streets of New York already."

"Well, he is my son after all," Blair replied brightly. Who did Chuck think he was fooling? He had planned to return to New York in the first week of August all along. She knew because she had bribed his secretary to tell her his schedule. Fine, if he wanted to think he had won this round then let him. It helped assuage her guilt a little. Henry had been much happier this summer because his parents were getting along. She could go along with the pretence if it made him happy. Maybe someday she would start to believe in the pretence herself and stop waiting for the other shoe to drop with Chuck.

The limo quickly completed the short drive through their sprawling estate and delivered the couple to their door. The maid was waiting to lead them to a quiet bower in the gardens where Chuck had organized a romantic candle-lit dinner, but one look at Blair's fatigued face convinced him that this was a bad idea. He still waited for the maid to direct them to the arbour of course, he needed the points for effort. As soon as they reached the garden, Chuck told the maid to clear the whole setup away and draw Blair a bath. "I figured, after the day you've had you need some relaxation and sleep. I'll have a tray of your favourite titbits sent up to your room for dinner," he said smoothly.

Blair gave him a grateful look and a quick kiss on the lips before hurriedly departing. Calculated or not, Chuck could sometimes be surprisingly thoughtful. She had also just bought herself another day. Chuck's advances were getting harder and harder to refuse. Every time she wondered if it would be easier to just give in, her conscience would prick her and she would become awash with guilt. 'If only-,' she began to think, but then stopped herself. Going down that mental rabbit hole would do no one any good.

Chuck watched her go. He knew something was on her mind and he thought he knew what it was. She was still uncomfortable with him, didn't think they had addressed their emotional issues fully yet, but he was working on it. Chuck looked at the floral decorations and fairy lights adorning the trellis in the garden that had just been rendered useless. Collateral damage, he mentally labelled it. It didn't matter if a few flowers and lights went to waste, he had made the right move. He knew he had to play his cards exactly right with Blair, and lucky for him, he still had an ace up his sleeve.

* * *

Anne Archibald was not doing any better. Her external injuries had completely healed, her bones had set and the scars had faded, but she remained infuriatingly unconscious. Nate smiled wryly as he deposited the flowers he had brought in the vase by her bedside and took it to the bathroom to fill it with water. Being comatose probably made it easier for her to maintain her stoical stiff upper lip.

A few weeks after the accident, the swelling in her brain had reduced enough for the doctors to assess her properly. They declared her to be in a 'vegetative state', not that Nate understood the difference between that and a coma. She still showed some brain function and was able to breathe without the help of a ventilator, but she seemed to be unaware of her surroundings and unlikely to wake up in the near future.

He set the vase down on the bureau and wondered what he should talk to her about. He had run out of happy childhood memories within a month of visiting her. The full-time nurse read his mother's favourite books aloud to her, so that was not an option either. Sighing, he settled for telling her about his day at work.

He pitied his mother. She had never cared for shop-talk; not with his father and not with him. And now she couldn't even tell him to shut up as he droned on and on about his plans to expand the Spectator into the Asian market. 'Well, if she hates it that much, she can bloody well wake up and tell me to change the subject,' he thought peevishly and then immediately chastised himself for such an uncharitable thought.

He heaved a sigh and stood up to switch the stereo on. The first strains of Elsa's narrative from Lohengrin began to filter through the speakers. His mother's condition was not improving and he was growing increasingly frustrated. His mother had been lying there unconscious for more than three and a half months and there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do to help. He felt so impotent and angry.

Or rather, he forced himself to remain angry and not explore anything underneath the surface. He had a newspaper to run, he couldn't afford to go to pieces. He couldn't allow himself to think of what would happen if his mother's condition never improved. He wouldn't allow himself to think of the detailed, explicit living will lying locked in his desk at home.

He had been shocked to know his mother had drawn up an advanced healthcare directive a few years ago. The Vanderbilt family lawyer had revealed to Nate and his grandfather that three years ago, Anne had discovered a mysterious lump in her breast. It had turned out to be non-cancerous, but it had still given her a scare. She had had an advanced healthcare directive drawn up immediately afterward. William had been as shocked as Nate had. The document had been very comprehensive, covering every possible scenario in which Anne would no longer be capable of making her own decisions. Nate had been granted the durable power of attorney for healthcare matters and his grandfather had been granted the financial durable power of attorney. Nate had been momentarily happy that his mother had chosen him over his grandfather for what he felt was the most important task, until the terms of the living will had been disclosed to him.

Anne Archibald wanted to die. No, she wanted Nate to kill her. If she remained in a vegetative state for over 6 months, she wanted Nate to petition the courts to allow him to end her life. It was close to 3 months already, he did not have much time left. If he was lucky, the courts would take a long time to process the case. If he was lucky, they would reject her mad scheme. Unfortunately for him, his mother's directives had been very specific. The lawyer had tried to reassure him by saying that there was precedent for such a thing so there was a good chance of the court granting his mother's request. Nate had wanted to strangle the lawyer. He did not need that kind of reassurance. He needed the case thrown out of court when the time came. November 1st. The date was circled with a red marker on the calendar in his mother's room. Her birthday. The day he needed to file the motion, asking to kill her.

Why had she never asked him before drawing up the living will? Why had she never confided in him about the cancer scare? He would have come home. He would have reassured her. He could have told his mother that he was not the man she thought he was, that he was too weak to carry the burden.

He clenched his fist tightly and dug his nails into his palms, hoping the pain would be enough distraction from his current line of thought. He refused to indulge in self-pity and depression. He blackly remembered the day he had discovered the terms of the living will; of the mistake he had made that had almost ruined everything.

* * *

 _The terms of his mother's living will had ripped a hole in his heart. He did not know what to do. He looked for answers at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey, and failed. Drunk, miserable and on the verge of tears, he hailed a taxi to take him to the one person in his life who had always known what to do. The one person who was strong enough and smart enough to handle this situation. She would tell him what to do. She would make everything OK._

 _To say Blair was surprised when the doorman rang up to her office to tell her about her intoxicated guest would have been a gross understatement. She had been working late and it was past 7:30 p.m. when the call came. She met Nate at the elevator, where he was carrying on a drunken argument with the automated voice._

 _"I'll bloody well not mind my step. What's it to you?" he yelled incoherently. Blair finally understood why the doorman had sounded so apprehensive on the phone and thanked God that her office was deserted._

 _With a firm voice and even firmer grip, she managed to usher Nate into her office and seat him on the low sofa. "Do you have anything to drink, Blair?" he mumbled._

 _"For you? Only water," she replied, pouring him a glass. She wanted to get him a strong cup of coffee, but unfortunately did not know how the fancy espresso machine in their office worked. There were some downsides to having maids and minions constantly catering to your every need._

 _She sat down next to him on the sofa, folded legs turned toward him, arm resting across its back. She knew that Nate was unlikely to be this drunk this early in the evening unless he had started drinking sometime in the early afternoon and she knew he would have never done that unless he had had a very good reason._

 _Looking at his profile, his head hanging in defeat, his eyes hidden by his mop of hair, very near broken her heart. Her maternal instincts kicked in and she unconsciously reached out a hand to stroke the hair away from his face. A minute later, she almost pulled it back in shock when she had heard a steady dripping noise. Nate was crying. His tears running down his aristocratic nose into the glad of water._

 _She gently pried the glass from his shaking hands and turned his face to look at her. "What's the matter?" she whispered._

 _Nate brought his hand up to cover his face. It was a childish reaction; somehow hiding his face would mean she could no longer see him crying. He had never cried in front of another person before. He felt vulnerable, naked. Through muffled sobs he told her what his mother had done, what she wanted him to do._

 _Blair asked him the important question first, in her usual no-nonsense fashion. Seizing his hand and squeezing it tightly to get his attention, she asked, "What did the doctors say about the chances of her recovery? Maybe you don't have to worry about this just yet."_

 _"They said, most patients wake within 4 weeks of being unconscious. Mother's been unconscious for six. The prognosis isn't good. 4 months is the next major mark, if she doesn't wake before then, then chances are, she never will," Nate answered brokenly, his voice tight from the effort of holding back more tears._

 _"Then we'll just have to focus on that. It hasn't been 4 months yet, and we have to file the motion at 6. We have time, yes? We just have to bide our time till then and try not to think about it," Blair urged, not noticing that she had used the first-person plural instead of the second-person singular._

 _Nate, however, did notice and his heart ached when he heard it. Blair had always taken his problems as hers. "I can't," he replied hoarsely, "It's not that simple. I can't stop thinking about it Blair, I don't know how." His eyes filled with tears again._

 _"Oh Natie," Blair murmured, embracing him. His big, muscular frame felt achingly familiar in her arms. She found herself rhythmically stroking his back as he cried into her shoulder. "It will be OK, we'll fix this," she said over and over, as if by merely repeating the words she could make them true._

 _Nate wrapped his arms around Blair. In the midst of all his intangible troubles she seemed like the only solid thing, so he held on to her for all he was worth. They stayed like that for what felt like hours, both overcome with grief._

 _Later, neither of them would remember who made the first move. Later, in his fuzzy, alcohol hazed memory, all Nate would remember would be the darkened room, Blair's sweet scent and the damp spot on his shoulder where her tears had seeped through. Later, all Blair would remember would be the anguished look in Nate's eyes and her overwhelming need to take away his pain._

 _He looked up at her, saw her tearstained face echoing his own and suddenly their lips met. It wasn't an explosive kiss, there were no fireworks. There was only need. The two of them, seeking comfort in each other's warmth as if the world around them would fall apart if they stopped._

 _It was a raw, almost primal kiss; filled with hurt, longing and desperation. Nate cupped Blair's face, angling her head to deepen the kiss. Her cheek bones beneath his palms felt so delicate, so fragile as if they would break if he applied the slightest pressure._

 _Blair nibbled on his lower lip, begging him for passage, her tongue snaking into his hot, wet mouth as his lips parted. Her hands crept under the edge of his untucked shirt, resting against his warm, muscular chest. She ran her hands over the muscles in his abdomen, feeling them jump at her touch. She could feel his rapid heartbeat drumming against her fingertips, and she knew somehow that their hearts were in sync. Even after 14 years, there was something agonizingly familiar about Nate's body, his mouth, his hands on her._

 _Needing to be closer to her, connected to her, Nate twisted his hands into Blair's hair. He tugged on her chestnut locks gently, making her tip her head back and expose the column of her throat to him. He nuzzled her pulse, smelling the familiar base notes of the perfume she had applied earlier that day. How was it that after so many years, Blair still smelled the same? His arms tightened possessively around her narrow waist and he began to trail kisses down her neck._

 _Blair tilted her head further back to give him better access, extracting her hands from inside his shirt to run them over his jaw. The scratchy feel of his five o' clock shadow titillated her greatly. It was only when she found herself reaching for his belt buckle that she realised what she was doing._

 _Nate felt Blair stiffen in his arms. "Stop," she whispered._

 _He pulled back from her at once. "What's wrong?" he asked stupidly. He already knew the answer to that. Blair had slid off his lap and was halfway across the room before he had finished his question, as if putting physical space between them would somehow negate what had just happened._

 _"It's late. I have to lock up the office and be home in time to tuck Henry into bed," she mumbled, her back to him._

 _He wanted to talk to her, apologise, to explain himself. "Blair-" he began tentatively, but she cut him off._

 _"You need to go," she whispered harshly, turning to face him, but still refusing to meet his eyes, "I would leave if I could, but this is my office so I can't. I'm begging you Nate. Please. Just go."_

 _Nate stumbled drunkenly from her office. The haziness had left his head, the knowledge of what he had done and the possible consequences had ushered in a chilling sobriety, but his body had yet to catch up. He was uncoordinated, clumsy, like his bones no longer fit right inside his body. He blamed the booze. He should have blamed Blair. He felt turned inside out, weak from intoxication and arousal._

 _He stopped at the street corner, and lit up a cigarette with unsteady hands. He was hot with shame and a sense of foolishness. What had he done? He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. He gave up on the cigarette after a couple of drags. It was doing nothing to help his jangling nerves. 'Just one more thing in my life that doesn't work,' he thought bitterly. He threw the spent cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his foot._

* * *

Blair popped in to see Henry before her bath. He was tucked into bed, reading. Yes, he was her son alright. Smiling, she sat down next to him and ruffled his hair, ignoring his protestations. She asked him about his day and listened to him deliver a rambling account of what he and his new best friend had gotten up to. Chuck insisted on calling the girl Henry's 'girlfriend', but Henry had blushed and resisted the term all summer. It reminded Blair of Nate and her at that age. She wondered briefly if things would turn out the same for them as they had for Nate and her. She hoped not.

She leaned down to kiss her son's yawning face. "No reading under the covers by flashlight," she instructed mock-sternly, "I'll be along later to check."

"Of course, mom. I promise," Henry lied, then pouted angrily as Blair ruffled his hair once more. He looked like a miniature version of Chuck when he did that.

As she left the room, Blair thought of her son's father. They had been attending marital therapy for over 3 months now, and things were getting better. Or were they? Sometimes she felt like she compensated for the guilt she felt about kissing Nate by being more attentive to Chuck. Why else would she agree to his mad scheme to spend the summer in the Hamptons when she was drowning in work in New York? Spending an entire summer commuting to and from the city by helicopter – her least favourite mode of transport – had been unbelievably taxing, and she hadn't been able to spend much time with Henry either. Seeing her son for 10 minutes a day, just before he went to sleep was not her idea of good parenting. What was she, a dad in the '60s?

Blair locked the door securely before stepping into the bath. She had seen the look in Chuck's eye earlier. It was getting harder to deny him, but every time he kissed her all she could think of was Nate. The feeling of his stubble as it grazed her skin. The smooth muscles of his chest. It made her pulse jump; something Chuck always noticed and took as encouragement. That just made her feel guiltier, so she ended up pulling away.

She had a hard choice before her – she could either go along with her husband and be consumed with guilt later, or she could tell him the truth and deal with the fall out. She gulped when she thought of how Chuck would react if she told him. He would ruin Nate. And he would find a way to ruin her too. The one marriage vow he had taken seriously was faithfulness. Even if he partied with other girls, even if they invited him into their arms and bedrooms, he had never strayed from her. She just knew. It was not who Chuck was. But it was who she was.

She flushed with shame when she realised that she had cheated in almost all her previous relationships. Back then, she had justified it to herself by saying that even if she had cheated, it had always been with Chuck because Chuck was her one true love. They were endgame. No one else could stand in the way of their grand passion, it was their destiny. But now, she had cheated on Chuck too.

She tried to convince herself that it was just a kiss, but she knew deep down it had been so much more. She had made herself emotionally available to Nate in a way that she had not been to Chuck for years. Was she just the cheating type? Was she destined to cheat on every man she was with?

She sunk lower into the tub until she was completely submerged by the bubbles. She liked the silence and weightlessness of being underwater. It made her feel like she was the only person left in the whole world. She stayed like that until she could no longer hold her breath and emerged gasping into the air, the cobwebs driven from her head.

She needed to stop overanalysing this. She and Nate had shared a drunken, at least on his part, kiss in a moment of madness. She just needed to forget about it and move on with her life. Blair edged the hot water tap open with her toe and topped up the rapidly cooling bathtub. After all, he seemed to have forgotten it as soon as it had happened. Why couldn't she?

* * *

 _Blair had waited nervously for Nate to call her all day. She jumped every time her phone rang, her pulse buzzing rapidly, but Nate did not call. Finally, she took matters into her own hands and rang him instead._

 _"Hello," she said quietly._

 _"Hi." Blair could not hear the usual smile in his voice and her heart sank._

 _"I just called to check in; see how you are," Blair continued in a strained voice._

 _"I'm fine. Everything is… fine." Nate had been dreading calling Blair all day. He had planned what he wanted to say to her multiple times, how it had been a mistake and that it was best forgotten, but had somehow found himself unable to pick up the phone and actually say those words. Now, she was on the other end of the line and he no longer knew how he felt._

 _"Oh. That's good," Blair answered. They lapsed into an awkward silence._

 _Blair was uneasy. The uncomfortable silence prevailing between them disquieted her. Finally she blurted out, "I'm sorry."_

 _Nate was surprised. "Why are you sorry?" he asked confusedly._

 _"Because you were drunk, but I was sober. I should have known better. I shouldn't have…" her voice trailed off._

 _Nate's heart thudded loudly in his chest. Everything he had thought to say that day flew out of his mind. He suddenly wanted to tell her not to worry. That even though he had been drunk, he had been perfectly aware of what he was doing. That he had wanted to do it. That he didn't regret kissing her, only the circumstances and the consequences of it. His mouth went dry. He couldn't speak._

 _"Anyway, I'm sorry. It was a mistake. Let's just forget it ever happened," Blair said. Nate's silence was disconcerting. The doubts that she had, so far, managed to keep at bay swarmed across her mind._

 _"A mistake," Nate repeated hollowly. Did she really feel that way?_

 _"Yes. A mistake. A blip. A glitch in the Matrix," Blair replied hoarsely, "It never happened."_

 _Nate finally snapped to. "Of course, you're right. It never happened," he said quickly, "I've already forgotten about it."_

 _"Right. OK then. I have work, so I'll talk to you later."_

 _"Of course. And Blair?"_

 _"Hmm?"_

 _"I'm sorry too."_

 _Nate hung up the call feeling empty. Wasn't this what he had spent all day planning to say? This was what he had wanted, so why did he suddenly feel so defeated?_

* * *

A dramatic crescendo in the opera brought Nate back to reality with a thump. He hadn't seen Blair since that day and he had spoken to her on the phone only a handful of times. Nate suspected the only reason she called was because she felt obliged to talk to him. She was his friend and he was going through a hard time. The conversation each time, had been strained. He knew he reminded Blair too much of her mistake, that she couldn't bear to hear his voice, but was forcing herself to for the sake of their friendship. He had gone and screwed everything up again. No wonder his mother had chosen him to carry out her wishes; pulling the plug on her would just be another blemish in the vast landscape of all the things he had done wrong. He was a colossal screw up. He would always be one.

His mother's condition was nearing the 4 month mark and she hadn't improved in the slightest. He had listened to Blair and bided his time, focused all his energies into his work. Nothing had changed. His mother still hadn't woken up, she still wanted to die and he was still to be her executioner. It was not fair.

The final notes of Act 1 of Lohengrin warbled through the speaker. Angrily, he banged his hand on the stereo, causing the disc to eject and fall to the floor. He saw the familiar figure of a collapsed woman in white on the disc. Of course, bloody Elsa had died too. All the bloody women in the bloody operas did. And in the bloody ballets too. No wonder his mother had been inspired to follow in their footsteps.

He picked up the fallen disc and twirled it between his hands. He was tempted to snap it in half, but he remembered that Wagner was a particular favourite of his mother's, so he restrained himself. The nurse entered as he was standing there brooding and reminded him that visiting hours were over. Nate quietly slipped the disc back in the stereo, kissed his mother farewell and strode from the room. With any luck, he would make it back home before the tears he could feel prickling behind his eyes finally overwhelmed him.

* * *

A/N 2: OK, so fairly long AN coming up, which you are under absolutely no obligation to read! That's why I'm doing a double chapter update today, so that **those who want to can just skip straight ahead to the next chapter.**

Guys, first off, thank you for all your reviews! I love getting reviews, even if they are negative ones because I'm always looking for ways to improve. That said, when you leave reviews as 'guests' I can't reply directly to you, hence this super-long AN. So bear with me y'all.

So this is at leila and my other nameless guest reviewer, and any one who might read this in the future who agrees with them?

First, I hadn't tagged Nair as a couple in this fic initially because I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to take the fic in. It was more about Blair as an individual for me. That said, it does seem to be causing an inconvenience (and I seem to have gained a few pure Chair followers too), so as of this update I will change the character status to reflect that.

About Nate: I always felt Nate was criminally underdeveloped on the show. He was just a convenient tool for guest actors/plotlines. The main pairs were Darena and Chair, Nate became extraneous, the writers used him as a prop. A lot. They like to portray him as dumb a lot, but he took the SATs a year before everyone else, got into Columbia on merit, started his own newspaper and successfully grew it into a huge brand (he had a goddamn jet in the series finale, ok?) and he was planning on running for mayor. What part of that list of achievements speaks to stupid? So I like to think of Nate as at least moderately intelligent. It's the same with Serena. She reads Flaubert and Fitzgerald. She's not technically dumb, just bad at making decisions. Which, newsflash, most teenagers/early 20s are.

About the OOCness: I'd identified this as a problem from before. It's hard to translate what one sees onscreen, with the benefits of faces and expressions, into text. That and I watched Gossip Girl a couple of years ago, so sometimes the characters are not very fresh in my mind. I do try to watch an episode or two before I write every chapter in an effort to emulate them better. Will try to do a better job with that.

That said, this fic is set 11 whole years after GG ended (excluding the flash-forward, which doesn't count because it was like 2 minutes long). So I do expect the characters to be very different in some ways. They've grown up (something the writers on GG never tried to show). I think a good example would be Brooke Davis from One Tree Hill, how she changed from the biggest bitch in high school to a successful entrepreneur who ran an anti-body shaming campaign. That is GROWTH. And since Blair is one of my favs on GG, I kind of expect that she would have a similar, if not better (coz she is smarter than Brooke was to begin with) growth. I think this applies to everyone who has lived past the age of 22 and is in the least bit keen to improve themselves. They change. I'm not who I was at 16 (thank God for that) and I hope at 32 I'm not the same that I am now, because that is just life.

Another factor that I would like to point out is that a lot has happened in the characters' lives that has changed them. Parenthood, parent death, marriage, divorce to name a few. Then there's travel, experiencing different cultures, meeting different people, working in an office, running the office. College (assuming the characters ever finished, major doubt abt that) changes you too, in unexpected ways. So I think all these things would definitely work toward changing the characters in some ways.

That said, I recognise the OOCness as a problem. Maybe you could help me out by directing me towards a couple of fics in which you thought the characters were characterised accurately? This is a problem that I do want to work on.

I think both of you have an issue with the way I portray Chuck. I have assessed and analysed Chuck too. He is a very complex and deeply flawed character. I have explored his motivations. I always do when I watch a show as I like to understand every character. He had a complicated upbringing and this reflects in his personality. As unnamed guest said, he just wants to be loved. I understand all this, and I was planning to bring it into the later part of the fic when he does some very chuckish things. Even though this fic is written in 3rd person, you have to understand that each scene kind of plays out from one character's POV. This is how the charas view Chuck. If it seems like Chuck-hate, it is because Blair is experiencing that Chuck-hate.

Chuck is an abuser. Now most abusive relationships tend to escalate in the level of abusiveness. For the sake of my fic, and my own sanity, I have chosen not to go down that rabbit hole. Instead I have Chuck at the same level of abuse he was displaying in S6, have improved Blair's self esteem and made her irritated with him instead. Why? Because I don't have the emotional resilience to write the story of Blair's recovery from an abusive relationship. Now for some home truths about Chuck.

 **Warning: Major Chuck-is-an-abuser rant coming up:**

Chuck is an abuser. He has constantly belittled Blair throughout the series (from 'rode hard and put away wet' to publicly embarrassing her in front of the Grimaldis (and assembled crowd). He abused Blair (I know Chair fans love to seize on the 'but he didn't actually touch her so it is not abuse' lifeline, but there are other kinds of abuse than just physical abuse. There is psychological and emotional abuse as well. That said, I think shaking her and shoving her does count as abuse). He is the one character in the entire series who has been reluctant to change or show growth. When Blair tries to get away from him, he manipulates situations so that she has no choice but to return to him. Why doesn't she just leave him if he is so bad? Because it is not that easy to leave an abuser (I will be posting some very informational links about abusive links at the end of this AN, please peruse!). Chuck sells Blair to Jack for his hotel. Now, the writers of the show tried to brush the major issue under the carpet by turning it into an 'but Blair chose to go' kind of thing, which basically no one bought. Chuck manipulated the entire situation and forced Blair into making the choice. The illusion of choice is still no choice. Forcing your SO to do something that they don't want to do, to prove their love to you is typical abusive behaviour.

A lot of people I have met say 'But Blair is a flawed person too,' as a response to the 'Chuck Bass is an abuser' line. That is called victim blaming. No one, no matter who they are, or what they have done, deserves to be in an abusive relationship with any one. Can abusers change? Some studies say they do (and I work in science, so I don't use the word study lightly), but it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. They have to recognise that they are abusers first. Maybe an interesting idea for a Chair fic would be Chuck working on not being an abuser. That is something I would not mind reading.

Look, I watched S4-6 of GG first, before S1-3. I was younger then, a lot. And did not know about the harsh realities of abusive relationships. I didn't know a lot of stuff that I know now tbh. I shipped Chair too. I read Chair fics. I made up plotlines for Chair fics that I never got around to writing. I thought it was romantic. That theirs was an epic love. Like Heathcliff and Cathy, except then you realise that Heathcliff was kind of abusive too. When you find out about abusers and abusive relationships, that is when you realise that this is NOT OKAY. Chuck's behaviour is not OK.

 **HERE ARE SOME HELPFUL LINKS ABOUT ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS**

(you have to add the .s after the wwws and before the org/com and remove the spaces)

1\. psychcentral com/ blog/ archives/ 2014/ 10/ 13/ 21-warning-signs-of-an-emotionally-abusive-relationship/

2\. www loveisrespect org /is-this-abuse /why-do-people-stay/

3\. thesocietypages org/ socimages/ 2011/ 05/ 04/ excusing-abusive-behavior-on-gossip-girl/

4\. mobi perezhilton com/ 2011- 05- 05-gossip-girl-glamorizes-abuse-between-chuck-and-blair#.VvnGe2pX7bM

5\. youtube com / watch?v=M4CNCWCc7vQ

The comments on some of these threads also alert you to the typical mindset that people seem to have, namely, victim blaming and defending the abuser because of his good looks and popularity.

I get GG was a TV Show and not real life, but unfortunately, I know a lot of girls and guys who watched it at 13-16 and romanticised Chair (I was one of them) who tried to emulate them IRL and ended up in abusive relationships. My best friend is still in a psychologically abusive relationship, but she thinks it's ok because the drama means it is an epic love. She is unable to leave the guy because she has become dependent on him through years of abuse. She thinks it is love, but he is hurting her and diminishing her every day. And I can't do anything to help her. Abusive relationships are a hugely personal issue for me. Chair is a hugely personal issue for me. Because their abusive relationship was romanticised, so many people I know have ended up getting hurt.

Just because it is fictitious and on TV does not make it any less powerful or real. It does not reduce the issue. If the writers had shown Chair as the abusive relationship it was, it would have been different. But they didn't. They wrote it as romance. It was a crime.

 **Congrats to those who made it to here! While Chair-is-abusive is something I am always open to discuss, please do not leave replies to this rant in my reviews. You can PM me on FFN instead. I always find super-lond A/N's annoying, and have no intention of writing such a long one again. So even if you do leave replies to this rant in my reviews, please do not expect replies.**

* * *

A/N 3: Just to end on a positive note, thank you all for reading this fic so far. We have finally arrived at the main plot, so hopefully things will only get better from here! xoxo


	6. Chapter 6

Alicia Abrams-Humphrey was confused. Misshapen blobs kept appearing around the four walls of her kingdom and cooing at her. "Who are you? Where are Blob 1 and Blob 2?" she asked crossly only for the blobs to reply in gobbledegook. She puffed out her cheeks in annoyance. These blobs were rude! Finally a familiar blob appeared, "Blob, pick me up!" she commanded imperiously and stretched her arms toward it.

Jenny Humphrey lifted the gurgling baby out of the pram and held her gingerly. She was so not used to this. "You're holding her wrong," Felicity told her gently in her French accent, rearranging Jenny's arms.

"You hold her then," Jenny replied crossly, offering the baby to her girlfriend.

"Non, ma cherie, the godmother is supposed to hold the baby. I think. I can't be sure with this new-age ceremony that your sister-in-law has planned." Felicity turned to look at Vanessa. Dressed in a flowing tangerine caftan with giant turquoise earrings, Vanessa was in deep conversation with Serena. "I simply do not understand," Felicity said, "How they are friends? How are Dan and Serena friends? You told me the divorce was terrible, non?"

"It's a long story," Jenny sighed.

"I have time," Felicity responded, batting her eyelashes in a way she knew Jenny could not resist.

"Oh, alright. Basically, Dan and Serena were married. They had a lot of arguments and petty fights, but they got along decently enough. Then one of Dan's books got shortlisted for the Ambassador Book Award. It kinda went to his head. He started doing all these talk show interviews and underground poetry slams and acting like he was ashamed of Serena and her un-literary ways."

"But I do not understand, Serena is very well read. She discusses French authors with me all the time!"

"She is, but she doesn't show it. She's kind of OK with projecting a bimbo image. It was a bit more complicated than just that obviously and they had problems way before any of this started, but this is a condensed version. So Serena got mad at Dan and cut up all his suits and threw them in the driveway. He reacted by moving out of the house and into a hotel."

"No! And then?"

"At this point the two of them were still willing to work on their marriage and try again, but then Dan wrote an angry poem about Serena which was published in the New Yorker. This famous band called the Raves saw it and got in touch with Dan. They wanted to buy the lyrics for a song," Jenny paused to blow a raspberry at Alicia.

"Hello!" Felicity waved a hand in front of Jenny's face, "I get that this baby is cute and all but you are in the middle of a story. Pay attention!"

"Right. Right. Where was I? Oh yeah, Dan sold them the lyrics and helped develop the song. He sent Serena tickets to the gig. It was going to be a last ditch effort to fix things. At the last minute, the lead singer of the Raves fell sick-"

"Ooh, I remember this! It was in all the magazines! Your brother was the songwriter who replaced the lead singer in the last minute?"

"Uh huh. It was _bad_. Dan can't sing to save his life, so he tried to do some sort of growly, metal voice instead. It was a disaster. He lost his voice a minute into the song. Meanwhile, Serena was miffed because she had thought that the tickets meant she and Dan would be spending time together. Instead he was onstage making an enormous fool of himself and she was left alone in the crowd. She got absolutely smashed and she made out with some random guy. Only he turned out to be a famous actor from a TV soap."

"Mon dieu! Serena is the mystery blonde who kissed Liam Bomergalder at the Raves concert?!"

"In her defence, she had no idea who he was. She doesn't watch TV. Anyway, it was all over the papers. Dan demanded a divorce. Serena agreed. But neither of them really wanted to get divorced because they still loved each other."

"Then why did they?"

"Because we turned each other into horrible people," Dan interrupted, stepping up to take his crowing daughter.

Jenny and Felicity blushed shamefacedly. "We weren't gossiping!" Jenny exclaimed defensively.

"Look, I am the last person to tell you off about gossiping," Dan smiled wryly, "Anyway, Serena and I did some horrible things to each other during the divorce. We weren't ready to let each other go, but didn't know how to show it. So we tried to mess up our divorce spectacularly. We'd both become a bit infamous after the Raves concert, so there was a lot of publicity. Eventually, we did so many bad things to each other that we fell out of love with each other and started to really hate each other."

"Then they went to trial, it was in all the papers. And when it ended they were bitter enemies, which put me in a pretty awkward position," Jenny added, "but then luckily Vanessa returned to New York. She and Dan started dating again and she talked sense into Dan. She and Blair schemed together and got Dan and Serena to be friends again."

"We didn't scheme. We're grown up. We mediated," Vanessa corrected playfully, coming up to join them.

"So basically, Serena and I became friends. I realised I had been a dimwit for not realising all those many, many years ago that despite me idolising Serena and writing her the world's longest and weirdest love letter, Vanessa was the one who truly understood me and loved me for who I was. I proposed, we got married and then boom, 9 months later a stork delivered this little bundle of joy to our doorstep," Dan said, blowing raspberries in his daughter's face, "Come on now, take your places, the ceremony is about to start."

Felicity took her place next to Chuck Bass in the front row of seats. "You look familiar, have we met before?" Chuck asked her. He had been trying to get his 'inappropriately sexist' (Blair's words, not his) language under control, so he had to bite his tongue to keep from adding, 'perhaps in a hot spring somewhere in Switzerland, with three other supple blondes.'

She looked at him blankly. "No, I don't think so. I am Felicity, Jenny's girlfriend. I am a neuroscientist. Maybe you have attended one of my guest lectures?" she asked.

Chuck chuckled. "I can assure you, I haven't. I am about as far removed from neuroscience as New York is from the Taj Mahal," he said, "I'm Chuck Bass."

The sound of ceremonial bells chimed through the park drawing the attention of the audience to Dan and Vanessa. Felicity turned away from Chuck to watch.

Chuck was still giving her an odd look. She really did look familiar. He was distracted by Blair slipping her hand into his. He was probably just imagining things. He turned to place his other hand reassuringly over Blair's. The ceremony was about to begin.

* * *

"That was… unusual," Blair said politely to Vanessa. They were standing near the picnic table, chatting. Vanessa laughed. Trust Blair to be critical and courteous at the same time.

"Thanks!" she replied dryly.

It had been unusual by Upper East Side standards, though by Brooklyn standards it had been positively tame. They had had a quiet naming ceremony in the park, followed by an eclectic mix performances from some of their hipster friends. The improvised sketch on capitalism and Wall Street had made Blair convulse. Not from laughter as had been intended, but from trying to control her gag reflex. Sometimes she really did not understand what passed for art nowadays. There was an open bar and a giant picnic table covered with a delicious spread, Blair and Chuck's gift to the new parents, and all the guests were relaxed and slightly tipsy.

Blair had tried to avoid Nate the whole afternoon. The only time she interacted with him had been when she was safely beside Chuck, and that had merely been to keep up appearances. Tongues would wag if they realised Blair and Nate were dodging each other. Nate, in his turn, had spent most of the afternoon entertaining the assembled children; organising them into a game of soccer, telling them stories and jokes. He was good with children.

From the corner of her eye Blair noticed Nate take Alicia from Dan's arms, instinctively holding her correctly. Alicia laughed, reaching her little starfish shaped hands up towards his handsome face. She saw Henry run up to his Uncle Nate, clearly his new favourite person, and breathlessly relate an exciting anecdote to him. Watching Nate crouch to speak to her son, a red-cheeked baby girl in his arms; Blair's felt a squeezing sensation in her heart. For half her life, this was the future she had envisioned. Her golden haired prince and their beautiful children.

"Thinking of what might have been?" Vanessa observed astutely.

"Something like that," Blair replied with a sad smile before excusing herself to go find Chuck.

She spotted him finally, standing off to the side, having an argument with someone on the phone. From the thunderous look on his face, Blair could see that he was in a bad mood. Perhaps now would not be the best time to approach.

She saw Jenny and her girlfriend laughing secretively a few feet away and decided to join in. "Do you think they're together?" she heard Felicity ask Jenny.

"Does she think who are together?" Blair asked.

"Nate and Serena," Felicity giggled.

Blair's face fell, her heart twisting. "Wh-what?" she stuttered.

"They've been spending a lot of time together this summer," Felicity clarified.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Blair demanded of Jenny, channelling her inner Queen B.

"When would I? In the brief thirty minute update meetings we have every morning, the ones in which I barely have time to tell you about our spring line? I hardly see you any more, even though we work together. You don't even take lunch breaks!" Jenny replied defensively.

"Speaking of lunch, that's when I usually see Nate and Serena. They're always in that deli near the Spectator building. I see them when I pop in to buy sandwiches for the lab," Felicity offered.

"Hey, didn't you once say that lunch was the meal before dating?" Jenny asked.

"I said a lot of inane things in high school, don't hold it against me," Blair quipped with a half-hearted smile.

"I don't know, you might've been right about this one. Look, they're even leaving together," Felicity pointed helpfully.

The three women turned silently to watch the golden haired pair leave. Blair felt sick, the modest lunch she had eaten threatening to come back up her throat. She took a deep breath and mentally ran through her calming technique. It had been a long time since she had last made herself throw up, she wasn't about to relapse now. Especially over something as obvious as Serena and Nate. Of course he had found his way back to her. Everyone had expected it. They were inevitable.

Blair excused herself and made her way to Chuck. If Nate and Serena were inevitable, then so were she and Chuck. Everything that had happened when they were teenagers had to have happened for a reason, hadn't it? She sat beside her husband on one of the wooden benches and turned to watch her son play.

'Of course everything happened for a reason,' she reassured herself trying and failing to ignore the sinking feeling deep in her heart.

* * *

"I'm really going to miss our regular lunch dates," Serena said lightly as she and Nate turned into her street.

"Lunchtime meetings you mean?" Nate corrected, smiling, "I'm really sorry for not being able to meet you during office hours. It's just that work has been so hectic."

"If you were any other client, I would have dropped you like a hot potato. But lucky for you August is a slow month, everyone is off summering in the Hamptons. So my event managing skills and I have been at your disposal," Serena replied. Nate had hired her firm to organise a charity gala and they had been meeting regularly to discuss it.

"Most CEOs would probably just delegate the task you know," Serena added, "Or hand it off completely to a qualified professional. Unless you don't consider me one." She pouted jokily.

Nate smiled cheekily. "You? Professional?" he mocked, before adding, "I'm just kidding. I know you're the best at your job. It's just that angioimmunoblastic lymphoma research is really close to my heart." Since his father had passed away from it, over 8 years ago, Nate had been an ardent supporter of the cause.

Serena gave his hand a comforting squeeze. "I know. It's great that the Spectator had contributed so much towards NHL research. You're doing wonderful things, Natie."

"Pfft, we get a huge tax break for our charity work," Nate brushed off the compliment, suddenly uncomfortable. All summer he and Serena had been moving towards something, something familiar. Their banter was easy. They supported each other. They understood each other.

After Nate had managed to alienate Blair, he had had only Serena to turn to. He and Chuck had drifted apart years ago, Dan was busy with his daughter and Jenny had never been his friend. If it hadn't been for work and Serena, he would have collapsed entirely. Serena still didn't know the details of his mother's living will, but she was intuitive enough to sense something was wrong with him, so she had tried valiantly to distract him and keep his spirits up.

They climbed the steps leading to the front door of Serena's brownstone in silence. The last rays of the fading sun fell upon her bright hair and skin, turning everything a burnished gold. She looked beautiful, a gilded goddess in the twilight. Ever since Nate had returned to Manhattan, the two of them had been hurtling towards this moment.

He leaned down to kiss her goodnight, his lips softly brushing against her cheek. He stayed like that for a few seconds, unable to tear himself away. It was inexorable. Maybe this was their destiny. He found his head turning towards hers, his nose grazing her cheek, following an invisible line to hers. Her lips were centimetres from his, her warm breath ghosting along his chin.

The scene was entirely familiar, yet something about it seemed off. He looked up into her eyes, knowing from experience that they would be filled with trepidation and anticipation, but this time there was a third emotion as well. He pulled away as soon as he recognised it. Resignation. He had felt it too. The inevitability. He had felt trapped by it.

"I'm sorry," he said stiffly, stepping back.

"Don't be," Serena replied, smiling sadly, "I'm glad."

They looked at the ground awkwardly for a few seconds. Finally, Serena cleared her throat and said, "Thank you." Nate looked up and saw the relief he felt mirrored in her eyes. He didn't need to ask what for, he just knew.

"Sometimes I think we're doomed to follow the same pattern over and over again," Serena began, "that this is our version of Sisyphus' punishment. We're doomed to try over and over and fail every time."

"Even though we know it will never work. We are too different and at the same time, too alike," Nate stated.

"I think for a lot of people, even our friends, you and I… we're the same. Blonde, beautiful and blessed. Both lightness and air. But that's not true, there's something very solid and substantial about you." Serena leaned against the far wall of the stoop and regarded him carefully.

"And you're fleeting and ethereal. I'm pretty sure Dan used that description in his book," Nate grinned.

Serena laughed. "For so long, I thought it had to be either one of you. You're the only boys I've ever truly loved you know? And Dan and I were such a disaster, which left you," Serena sighed and sank down on a step, "Only I don't want it to be you either."

"I'll try not to be offended by that," Nate said lightly, sitting down beside her.

"You know that's not what I meant!" Serena batted his arm playfully.

"I know. To be honest, I'm kind of glad too. It sounds terribly unromantic, but I feel like you and I, us, we're a bad habit. We're just used to coming together, it's easy, simple. Until it's not and then we fall apart. I think we've never tried to fight for it because deep down we didn't want to. We knew it wouldn't be worth it."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each contemplating what the other had said. The last of the sunlight had faded and the first of the streetlights had come on. The temperature dropped suddenly and there was a chill breeze in the air. Nate shrugged off his jacket and draped it around Serena's bare shoulders. She gave him a small smile as thanks.

"You know, Jenny once told me that Blair had at one time describe you and I, us, as mythic," Serena said after a while.

Nate smiled. It was such a typically Blair word. "Maybe she was right. Maybe what we have isn't meant to be real."

"Don't say that. It makes me feel like none of it was ever real."

"Of course not. I really loved you once."

"I really loved you too."

"I know."

They fell silent again, but it was a more comfortable silence this time. Though the street was deserted, Nate could still hear the hum of the city at a distance. He had been worried about coming back to this place, afraid of falling into old habits. Maybe he needn't have worried so much. As much as he had changed, the city and its inhabitants had changed too.

"I think we're like parallel lines," he said abruptly.

"What do you mean?"

"We'll always travel together. Within reach. With a unique relationship. More than friends, but not siblings or lovers. A higher plane of friendship. Always aware of each other and keeping pace, but like parallel lines, we're meant to never meet. We're just meant to coexist. Together but separate."

"I really like that theory."

"Me too."

"Goodnight Nate," Serena said, getting to her feet. She offered him her hand to help him up. He kept her hand in his as he leant forward to kiss her cheek, but there was no hesitation this time.

"Goodnight Serena." He stayed on her stoop until she was safely indoors. He felt light and unburdened, like a new man. There was a spring in his step that night, and as he walked home through the empty streets one could have sworn that he was whistling.

* * *

A/N: People who have read the GG novels will recognise that I kind of adulterated the plot of one of the books for the Darena divorce. I blame Easter chocolate and reduced mental capacity.

Shout out to my other guest reviewers! Unnamed Guest 1, Unnamed Guest 2 and K! Sorry Guest 2, there ain't gonna be any Cherena. I find that ship kinda weird. They're like siblings.

Guest 1, thanks for your encouragement. I am glad that my first review was a positive one :).

K, thank you! We've finally reached the actual Nair-y scenes and I have a lot of fluff planned, so please stay with me. (This sentence works on two levels^^).

The parallel lines dialogue was inspired by a poem I saw in this awesome Korean drama called 'Falling for Innocence'. It's super cute (the first 2 episodes are a dud btw, but stick with it, it gets so much better after that).

Thanks for reading you guys, please review(esp about the quality of writing)! xoxo.


	7. Chapter 7

"Serena!" Blair called from the kitchen, "I can't find the ice cream." She was peering into the freezer, trying to find the familiar Mogenstern's container behind the trove of frozen food.

"Check behind the percebes," Serena yelled from the living room where she was setting up the home theatre.

Blair pushed aside a packet of frozen peas and finally discovered the percebes and behind them, the ice cream. It had been two weeks since Blair and Chuck had returned from the Hamptons. Not having to make the long commute to work had given Blair a lot of extra time. She had meticulously planned her work agenda keeping the commute in mind, so now that she had returned to New York, she found herself ahead of schedule in almost everything. She had even had time to keep her bi-monthly friend date with Serena that night. Now if only if she could find a subtle way to bring up Nate and find out if they were really dating.

The two girls were planning to have a cosy sleepover in Serena's brownstone, eating Morgenstern's ice cream and watching Funny Face. "It is a crime to freeze percebes like that," Blair chided, setting the bowls and spoons on Serena's coffee table, "Five percebeiros do not die harvesting them every year for you to put them so callously in your deep freezer."

"I can't help it," Serena pouted, "My client gave them to me as a gift and I don't know how to cook them!"

"Which is why most of us have personal chefs," Blair countered primly, "Speaking of chefs, can I hire you one as a belated birthday present? I could swear I saw a couple of Lunchables lurking in your kitchen cupboard."

"Ha ha," Serena intoned dryly, picking up a spoon and digging into the carton of ice cream, "I thought I told you never to mention my birthday? I'm trying to retain an air of mystery when it comes to my age."

Blair swatted Serena's spoon away from the ice cream. "Use a bowl. What are we? Neanderthals?"

Serena dodged Blair's hand and took another spoonful of blueberry labne. "Besides, you're only thirty two. I don't think you need to worry about your age yet," Blair continued, giving in and digging straight into the carton too.

"Spoken like a naïve married woman," Serena said pityingly, "You have no idea how rough the dating scene is right now, if you're over 26 you are _out._ " She accompanied this statement with violent throat slashing motions. "All anti-ageing measures have to start early, including establishing a fake age. 10 years from now when I celebrate my '35th' birthday and gaslight everyone into believing I'm younger than I am, I don't want there to be any evidence to the contrary."

Blair laughed and grabbed the remote off the coffee table. It was the perfect opening for her to ask the question that had been plaguing her since the christening. "Oh? Why are you so concerned about dating anyway," Blair began, acting indifferent, "I thought you and Nate were together."

Serena almost choked on her ice cream. "Definitely not!" she exclaimed, "What the hell, B? Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Jenny mentioned you two had been having lunch together all summer, so I figured…" Blair gave Serena a look.

"Right, because lunch is the meal before dating?" Serena replied sarcastically, "He's a client. I'm planning the annual Spectator charity gala."

Blair blushed. When would people stop bringing up her teenage Blairisms? Leaning back into the couch, she said with exaggerated insouciance, "Yeah, but it's you and Nate, there's some kind of cosmic plan to get you two together."

"Never. Again." Serena was emphatic.

"Never say never," Blair reminded her.

"Never, ever, ever. Nate and I were over years ago," Serena said, "We don't work. We don't want to be together. I am so tired of all of you trying to gaslight me into thinking Nate and I are fate."

"What's with the 'gaslight' overuse?"

"It's on at the Davenport," Serena smiled sheepishly, "One of my clients gave me tickets."

"Is this going to be like the time you tried to get us all to start saying 'know your onions' in 8th grade? Right after you read 'The Great Gatsby?' Although, I'm pretty sure they never actually use the word gaslight in Gaslight," Blair scraped the bottom of the Morgenstern's container, trying to get the last dregs of the ice cream. She still wasn't satisfied with Serena's answers about Nate.

"When it comes to Nate and me, you certainly do not know your onions, B." Serena picked up the empty ice cream carton and took it to the kitchen to throw it away. She filled the kettle with water and offered Blair a cup of chamomile tea.

Blair declined and perched herself delicately upon one of the stools at the kitchen island. As the kettle boiled, Serena filled Blair in on her long conversation with Nate.

"I had no idea Nate could be so eloquent. Are you sure you weren't talking to Dan?" Blair joked when Serena was done.

"I was surprised too. He's changed since moving to London hasn't he?"

Blair murmured her agreement before flippantly adding, "Damn London. First it turns Jenny Humphrey into a lesbian, then it makes Nate reasonably intelligent. What next? If you move there will it turn you into a mathematician?"

"Hey, I could be a mathematician," Serena jested, "I just have to go back and pass high school trigonometry again. The right way." She winked saucily.

Blair laughed, opening the freezer door again to look for more ice cream.

"Anyway, Nate was right," Serena said, as Blair unearthed some from the bursting freezer, "Besides, it's been what, 12 years since we last dated? Does attraction even last that long?"

Blair rested her suddenly flaming cheeks against the cool freezer door. 'Yes, yes it does,' she thought, remembering their kiss.

Serena was scrabbling through the kitchen cupboard, looking for a teabag when she heard Blair say something, her voice muffled by the freezer. "What was that, B?"

Blair pulled her head out of the freezer and looked Serena nervously in the eye. "Nate kissed me," she repeated quietly.

Serena blinked at Blair for a few minutes before switching the kettle off and saying decisively, "This going to need something much stronger than chamomile tea."

* * *

Several hours later, Blair and Serena were lying side by side on Serena's king sized bed, finishing the last of their second bottle of wine. Blair had moved on from the kiss and was telling Serena how disenchanted she felt about her marriage.

"We struggled for so long to be together, S," Blair said, "Six years of games, drama and crisis after crisis. Even our wedding was interrupted by an arrest! But then I thought that would be it. Happily ever after. And then Henry was born and things got different." She took another slug of wine and told Serena how her priorities had changed after Henry was born, how motherhood put her life into perspective.

"The things I used to care about before – the scheming and gossiping – all started to seem really petty." Blair said. But she and Chuck had been happy. Blissful in fact. Even though they were steadily becoming different people and in effect growing apart, they still loved each other.

"It was during the IPO that things started going wrong," she confessed, "I'll admit, I was consumed by work. I was, in effect, the CEO but I hadn't been elected to the post. A lot of the senior members of the old team were annoyed, they thought I got the job because of nepotism."

She shrugged wearily and downed her wine. "They were partly right. They forgot the fact that mother had made me jump through flaming hoops to get the job. But at the same time a lot of candidates were more deserving than I was, they had more experience, they contributed more. So I worked my butt off to prove myself. The IPO was the culmination of my efforts, you know? After I took the company public, the shareholders voted me in as CEO. My position was legitimised. I had taken my mother's company, her legacy and turned it into my own.

"But it came at a price. I was spending long hours at the office, barely getting home in time to tuck Henry in. Most nights I'd pop in, see him for 10 minutes and then head back to work. I kind of neglected Chuck. I thought he would understand, he of all people knows what it is like to live in your parent's shadow. I mean, I've made enough sacrifices for him!" Blair's voice grew angry as she remembered the hotel deal with Jack Bass, "He tried to pimp me out in exchange for his hotel, but I understood. I forgave him. Why did he never try to understand me?"

Serena looked carefully at Blair, noting her flushed face and slightly unfocused eyes. Blair was drunk and her fury was mounting with every sentence. Serena understood the need for her friend to vent. She had been holding these emotions in check for several years, had never given so much as a hint to how she felt. All of them had sensed that the happy couple were having problems, but neither of the pair had acknowledged it.

"He didn't understand. He lived in his father's shadow, yes. But once Bart was gone, everyone looked to Chuck for leadership. I mean the only one on the board of directors who occasionally questions Chuck is your mom, but even then she prefers to stay out of most of the nitty-gritties. He doesn't have to answer to anyone, or justify his existence.

"The company was frickin' publicly held when Jack stole it from him, and then he stole it back and Lily got involved, then Bart died, then Bart came back. Did one shareholder question anything? The board of directors didn't even bat an eyelid. He can just be 'Chuck Bass' and indulge in his shady backroom deals and bribe and scheme and do whatever the hell he wants, but _I can't_.

"Everything about my business is legitimate. I can't even accept a gift from one of our suppliers because then the directors will say I am taking kickbacks. Everything is written down, filed away carefully. My mother ran the company like that and when I took over, I had no choice to run it the same way. But now, I don't even want to run it any other way. I love it. It gives me so much pride to achieve things through hard work alone. No shortcuts. That's what I want to teach Henry too. The joy of earning your rewards." Her voice trailed off and the two sat in a pregnant silence for a few minutes. Serena was racking her brain for a suitable reply, but she was at a loss for words.

"I talked to him about it, you know?" Blair suddenly said, turning to Serena and gripping her hands, wild eyes scanning Serena's face rapidly, "About needing to prove myself. But the Bass-tard just said 'Things are different now that we have Henry, you're neglecting him.' As if I wasn't tormented by that thought every day'? Of course things were different. I had a child, but did that mean I was to give up my ambition? I tried, I really tried, and I still try to be there for Henry. To spend as much time with him as I can. Now, for two months a year, and only two months, before both the New York Fashion Weeks; that's the only time that I work late. I see him off to school every morning, I attend every one of his plays and recitals." Her voice cracked, "I'm a good mother, S. Aren't I?"

Serena wrapped her arms around her best friend, rubbing her back in a soothing manner. "Of course you are," she whispered honestly. Blair was a terrific mother. She should know, having grown up with a sometimes wonderful, but horribly inconsistent mother. Their relationship had improved over the years, but Serena had never considered Lily to be a parent in the true sense of the word. Lily was like a flaky, flawed big sister that she loved unconditionally; even when Lily was trying to ruin her life. "I don't have kids, I might never have kids. I don't think I want them," she continued, "But if I did, I'd want them to be as loved as Henry evidently is. You and Chuck are great parents. You're a great mother."

Blair nodded shakily, not looking up from Serena's shoulder. She knew she was drunk and was being quite loquacious, but she needed to get this off her chest. She needed to speak candidly about her relationship to another person; to be reassured that she wasn't imagining everything, that the hurts were real. She withdrew from Serena and wiped the few tears that had slipped from her eyes before charging on, "So I was working hard for the IPO, I was neglecting Chuck. He tried to muscle in on the IPO, saying he wanted to help me. But it was obvious it was just an excuse to make me engage with him. It didn't matter. Even I wanted his help, I had to do it alone. I needed the credit, the recognition.

"He didn't understand. He sulked for weeks, but work was so taxing that I barely had any energy left to deal with him. He started to party hard again. Getting photographed with skimpily clad models week after week.

"It was clearly a cry for attention, but I had none to spare. I didn't want to spare it either. I loved him, but I didn't like how he was behaving. Like a spoilt brat throwing a temper tantrum. Remember how I said my priorities changed after Henry was born? I was suddenly longing for a quietly supportive partner. One who would _listen_ to me, who would understand why I needed to do what I was doing.

"Chuck used to be that guy. He used to understand my drive, my goals. Sure he had always wanted my attention too, and back in those days it was easier for me to give it to him." She sighed heavily and gave a sad little smirk. "I know what the old me would have done. Created a problem for him to solve, to occupy his attention so he didn't feel ignored. But I didn't have the time, nor the desire. I wanted things to stop being so complicated. I was tired. I am tired.

"We drifted apart. Like an obnoxious toddler, Chuck began to irritate me. When the IPO was over, things between us were so strained. We barely spoke to each other. We slept in the same bed at night, but we could have been strangers for all it mattered. We didn't touch each other anymore or talk to each other. Sometimes I wondered if we even loved each other anymore. We were pleasant towards each other in public, smiling, playing our parts; but that was the extent of our relationship. It went on for years, S."

"Wait, how does Nate play into this?" Serena asked curiously.

Blair covered her face with a pillow and sighed. She felt so ashamed about her momentary lapse of control with Nate. "Chuck moved into the guest bedroom at the beginning of April this year. I think it was a last ditch attempt to force the situation." Blair mumbled, her voice muffled by the hypoallergenic polyester. "It worked. We talked. We kissed for the first time in years. We both wanted to try again, to save our marriage. We've been going to marital therapy for the last four months. I thought we were making progress… but the kiss ruined everything. I am just so consumed by shame, S. Every time I kiss Chuck, all I can think of is Nate. The guilt is crushing."

She felt the blood rush unbidden to her cheeks as it always did when she thought of her kiss with Nate and was glad that she had hidden her face beneath the pillow. That was one detail Serena did not need to know. She did not need to know that a large part of Blair's guilt came from the arousal she felt when she remembered the incident, how dirty Blair felt whenever her husband kissed her and she thought of another man.

She also did not need to know that she had tried to crush these feelings and sleep with Chuck the night of the christening. The thought of Serena and Nate dating had rattled her. He had clearly moved on, and she was married to someone else. Someone she had a child with, and she owed it to her son to make her marriage work.

She had thought that their all-consuming chemistry would overwhelm everything else, but it had felt like touching a stranger. She knew Chuck's body like the back of her hand, knew where every mole was and the constellations that they made. She knew which area of his body would elicit a specific response. The contours on the map in her head had not changed, but the familiar chemistry that fizzed underneath its surface did not come.

Of course Chuck knew her body as well as she did his, and he drew her to a quick climax just as he had always done. But there had been something mechanical about the encounter, an emotional disconnect. She knew he had felt it too, seen it in his eyes as he had rolled off her, his sweat soaked hair plastered to his forehead. It had been empty, meaningless. Visibly shaken, Chuck had left the bedroom wordlessly and returned to the guest bedroom. They had skirted the issue every time they had spoken since.

Serena lifted the pillow off Blair's face, studying her confused, defeated expression. "Are you going to tell Chuck?" she asked.

"No!" Blair sat bolt upright in bed, "Can you imagine how he would react? No, don't imagine it. It's too horrible. I've read enough Greek tragedies to know what the betrayed husband does to the lover."

"Calm down," Serena laughed despite the severity of the situation, "Nate isn't your lover. It was just one mistimed kiss."

"Do you think I should tell him?" Blair asked plaintively as she lay back down.

Serena considered the question for a moment, twirling Blair's mahogany locks around her finger. "I'm a firm believer in honesty in relationships," she said. Blair gulped anxiously.

"But sometimes honesty just makes things worse," Serena continued, "If it really was meaningless – why risk everything that you have with Chuck over it? You say Nate has forgotten all about it. You will too. Just stop obsessing over it, that's just your conscience pricking you. Besides, it's not like you're planning to do it again, are you?"

Blair shook her head vehemently, "Definitely not." But later that night, long after Serena was asleep, she found herself wondering if that was really true.

* * *

Nate was early to work that morning; his game of basketball with Chuck Bass having finished quicker than he had anticipated. He had been both surprised and apprehensive when Chuck had called him the previous night to suggest it. Ever since Nate had left the Upper East Side, he and Chuck had barely kept in touch. Their friendship had faded completely. Their previous meetings since he had returned held no animosity, but they held no warmth either. They were just acquaintances now. Why would Chuck call him?

His first thought had been of Blair. Had she confessed the kiss to Chuck? Was it going to be a 'pistols at dawn' kind of scenario? He knew Chuck was more than capable of such a thing, though perhaps buying the Spectator and publically humiliating Nate at the Spectator charity gala was more his scene.

However, Chuck had shown no signs that anything was out of the ordinary. He seemed to genuinely want to rekindle their friendship. Nate idly speculated, if Chuck had any other friends, mentally running through a list of candidates. As he entered the Spectator building Nate reflected on how awkward the meeting had been. He had heard the stories, about how childhood friends could meet after several years and just fall into their old friendship. But that hadn't happened. They had been tense and uncomfortable; their friendship had been based on privilege, power and proximity. Now, like so many once inseparable childhood friends, they had drifted apart.

Nate was also surprised by his lack of guilt. He had met the man whose wife he had kissed and he had felt no remorse. He briefly wondered if this made him a sociopath and then rejected the thought. It was strange how separate he considered Blair and Chuck to be now. At one point, all those many years ago, they had been a single entity. Practically conjoined. Their interests had been the same, personalities so similar that Nate could have called them twin halves of the same soul. But now, even when they were together Nate felt a difference between them. A kind of unbridgeable gap. He wondered if he was the only one who thought so, or if his recent history with Blair shaded his perspective.

Nate tried to dismiss the thought and focus on his work, but it lurked in the back of his mind all morning. He was relieved when it was lunchtime. Perhaps Serena would provide adequate distraction from his current line of thinking.

He was unpleasantly surprised when he entered the deli and saw Serena with a dark look on her face. "You!" she said ominously, the accusation clear in her voice.

'Oh boy,' Nate thought nervously, 'what have I done now?'

* * *

Blair was in a good mood. Unburdening herself to Serena had been exactly what she needed. Her problems didn't weigh so heavily on her mind anymore. She flicked on the espresso machine in her office kitchen, enjoying the silence of the early morning and the empty office. Sometime in July she had forced one of the interns to teach her how to work the appliance, deciding that it was embarrassing not to know how to use the simple mechanism. She took the steaming cup into her office and soon lost herself in her designs.

She was surprised a few hours later when her secretary, Letitia, buzzed in an unexpected visitor. Clearing away her sketches quickly, she stood up and pasted a welcoming smile on her face. "I didn't realise we had an appointment," she said politely to her company's financial director, Clive Rosenberg. She didn't like the man, he was one of her harshest critics. He had opposed her appointment as CEO from the start. However, she knew he was loyal to the company and to her mother, and after witnessing Blair successfully handling the IPO he had developed a grudging respect for her.

"I'll keep this short," he said without preamble, "someone has been buying up Waldorf Designs' stock. They've been using a variety of shell companies to make the purchases, but I did some investigating – the main parent company is called 'Tiller Inc.'."

Tiller Inc. had bought up 12% of Waldorf Designs' stock over the last three months. Blair and Eleanor together owned 51% of the stock, so an insignificant 12% would not have bothered her normally. However, one did not 'normally' purchase a company's stock through various shell companies. Someone was trying to hide what they were doing and it made it very fishy indeed.

Blair thanked him for bringing the issue to her notice. Before he left he gave her a significant look. The words 'If you hadn't been distracted with your personal problems you would have known sooner,' were left unspoken in the air between them.

She ran her hands through her hair exasperatedly. He was right. She should have started monitoring this company the minute they bought up 5% and the SEC had sent notice. Instead she'd been too distracted with her failing marriage. How could she think that she would be allowed to have it all? Of course life would throw some fresh challenge in her way.

The controlling interest in the company was hers so there could be no hostile takeover, but there were still many things someone could do to harm Waldorf Designs if they wanted to. The stock purchase would just be the first step. She needed to find out who owned this Tiller Inc. and what they planned to do with their W.D. shares. She also needed to figure out what she could do to stop them from buying more.

All morning the problem nagged at her. She set her P.I. to work at once, but it would take a while for her to dig up the information. Until then, she had no choice but to twiddle her thumbs and wait.

She was looking out of office window, pondering the problem, when she heard her office door crash open behind her. 'What the hell?' she thought. Who would barge into her office like this? Where was her secretary? The annoyed frown that furrowed her eyebrows disappeared into shock as she swivelled around and came face to face with a thunderous looking Nate.

She noticed her secretary standing diminutively behind him, having tried in vain to prevent him from entering. "You can't just charge in without an appointment, sir," she said, trying desperately to inject a note of authority into her voice, "Ma'am, I tried to stop him but he just pushed past m-"

Blair raised a hand, cutting her off. "It's perfectly alright, Letitia. Leave us."

Nate was still glaring at her angrily, and the minute the door clicked shut behind Blair's secretary he hissed, "You told Serena. What the hell were you thinking?"

His combative tone immediately put Blair on the back foot. Hackles rising, she replied defensively, "She's my best friend, I tell her everything."

"Some best friend if it took you three months to do it," Nate sneered, watching Blair as she rose from behind her desk.

"What did she say?" Blair asked quietly, ignoring his barb, coming to a stop in front of her desk and leaning on it. She tried to feign nonchalance but did not think she was succeeding.

"What do you think? 'How could you kiss Blair? Don't you know she's married? You idiot!' etc. Funny how she thought it was all my fault, she didn't seem to know that _you kissed me back_ ," Nate answered furiously.

Blair flushed with annoyance. Stupid Serena, making a mess of things as usual. "Of course she knows that! You can't hold me responsible for Serena's misguided actions."

"No, but I can hold you responsible for yours," Nate said sharply, "Who else did you tell? Your husband? He didn't seem to know about it when we played basketball together this morning, but I don't know, maybe you two are playing one of your bloody games again."

The blood drained from Blair's face. "You spoke to Chuck?" she asked nervously, before realising that there was no way Chuck knew anything about it. Her anger returned in full force, "What the hell were _you_ thinking? Do you get some sort of perverse pleasure from hanging out with the man you cuckolded?"

Nate took a step towards her before checking himself. Sometimes she made him so mad. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling frustrated. "Did. You. Tell. Him?" he bit out angrily.

"Of course not! Do you take me for a fool? I'm sure he doesn't know."

"Maybe someone saw us that day. Or recorded us. It has happened before."

Blair laughed cruelly. "Do you think I didn't check? The first thing I did was ask the doorman if he had let anyone else in after you. No one was here. There's nothing on the security cameras either. No one else knows," she said before adding snidely, "You left the Upper East Side a long time ago Nate, so it probably didn't occur to you to do so. This place is still a hotbed of scandal and gossip and unlike _you_ , I'm not a naïve idiot."

She saw hurt flash momentarily across his eyes before Nate recovered and replied coldly, "Do you want to know why I left the Upper East Side Blair?"

Blair made no move to respond. They had been talking about something else entirely, the abrupt change in subject put her on edge. Where was he going with this?

"This," Nate continued, his voice rising in anger, "Exactly this. It doesn't matter what I do, to you people I will always be the _naïve idiot_ , the one who always gets taken advantage of, the weak link. I'm not stupid, Blair. I haven't been for a long time, and I am so tired of having to prove myself, over and over to you. To Grandfather.

"I grew the Spectator from a struggling business into a multimillion dollar newspaper. Me. Single-handedly. I thought it would make you think of me differently, make you realise that I am worthy of respect. But it doesn't matter what I achieve. I will always be the dumb one, the floozy, the boy who whored his way through half the Upper East Side. That's why I left. Do you know what it feels like? To have the people you love continually underestimate you? To seek validation from perfect strangers because no one in your life recognises that you have value?

"Nothing I ever accomplish will make you or anyone else see me as anything more than a moron. Nothing I ever do will make me good enough. Nothing. And you know what? I'm done trying." He thrust his trembling, clenched fists into his pockets, upset at himself for losing his temper.

He was about to make an excuse and leave when Blair said softly, "You're right."

She was standing beside her desk, clutching it to steady her trembling legs. Nate's rage had been both terrifying and awe-some to behold. Her knees felt weak, like they were about to buckle. She took a deep breath to compose herself. "You are right. I haven't been fair to you," she said, not meeting his eye, "I keep looking at you and seeing the boy I knew at 16, keep judging you based on who you used to be. And that isn't right. I know how much I hate it when people still treat me like the biggest bitch in high school, but it never occurred to me that you… that you felt it too."

Blair looked up at Nate earnestly, "You are a great guy Nate. You've achieved a lot. I would say I'm proud of you, but I have no ownership in your work. No credit to claim. It was all you. You did everything on your own. And I respect you for that. You are a remarkable person."

Nate felt the fight drain out of him. He didn't want to argue with Blair, really. He wasn't angry that she told Serena either. He had just used it as an opportunity to air out the old grievances and past hurts that had surfaced since he had returned. Or so he told himself. Deep down, so deep that Nate didn't dare to look, he knew that it had all just been an excuse to see her. His anger a camouflage for his real feelings.

He took a few steps toward her. He had been lost the last few months without her. He needed her. Her guidance, her friendship. "I've missed you," he said simply.

"I've missed you too," she replied. "I'm sorry about everything. Everything. I haven't been a very good friend." Her face broke into a tentative smile.

"I haven't either, I'm sorry." He held his arms open to her and she took the two steps required to close the gap between them. As they shared a warm, friendly hug, Blair felt happy. For the first time since she had kissed him all those weeks ago, she was at peace.

* * *

The muffled arguing coming from Blair's office fell silent. Letitia strained her ears and cursed once more the thick walls in the building. She hadn't been able to hear a single word they had said. Still, it didn't matter, she was sure the incident itself would be worth something. She slipped her mobile out of her pocket and dialled a number.

"Hello?" she said to the voice on the other end, "I have some information on Ms. Waldorf and I think you might be interested in hearing it. It has to do with Nathaniel Archibald."

* * *

A/N: Gah, I've been working on this chapter all week and it just isn't getting any better. I'm suffering from some form of writer's block, except it's more like writer's disjointedness.

Am upping the rating on this fic to M. Not because it contains any lemons or limes, but because acc to FFN rules any allusion to sexual situations requires an M rating. Don't personally agree with this, but hey, rules are rules. So. :)

Anyway, please read and review! I will try to do better next time, xoxo.


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